Project Tatterdemalion
by Vathara
Summary: What if Hollows were caused by an alien virus? Sci-fi AU. Warning for gore, and some language.
1. Late to the Party

**Project Tatterdemalion**

A/N: Bleach sci-fi AU, heavily influenced by Species and DOOM (the movie). I own nothing but the odd machinations of plot. Tropes have been liberally scattered through here; tvtropes(dot)org is a wonderful source for those curious about what makes stories tick. (Be warned: if you _are_ interested in such story-building neatness, TVtropes will _eat your brain_.) M Warning for gore, geekery, and levels of biological squick. Oh, and cuddling.

* * *

_Chapter 1: Late to the Party_

Death, Juushirou Ukitake thought fuzzily, tasted oddly like sweat, hot acid, and burnt hair.

_I always though death would be cold…._

The chill of the grave. Of the leaden weight of oxygen, flowing into failing lungs. Of knowing he'd done the right thing; his coworkers in the Project's Data Analysis and Statistics division would never get out in time if they had to drag him, too-

But god, he didn't want to die alone.

_Hope that is the worst that happens_, Juushirou told himself firmly. _Tetsu's old enough now, he can keep our younger siblings together. But if these things get to the Western Continent-_

There was just something painfully ironic about this whole mess. He'd spent years beating the odds on a fatal disease, knowing he couldn't beat it much longer - only to die at the teeth of an alien-infested monster.

_And claws, and tentacles…._

Only why did death feel like being caught in something hot, hard, and sticky?

_Sounds like one of Major Kyouraku's bad jokes… do they have bad jokes in Heaven, or am I in worse trouble than I thought?_

Not that he would mind either way, Juushirou admitted guiltily, if the Project's second in command of security just happened to be there with him. Never mind that he barely knew the man, beyond lunch in the cafeteria and some late-night ninja MMORPGs. His coworkers knew him, and pitied him. Shunsui's reaction to the whole _dying_ thing was, "Sucks. Hey, think we can take these guys? Lousy excuse for a tiger trap…."

Something massive nudged against the walls holding him. Backed off, hissing.

:_Pulse._:

Light-flash and prying fingers and _hunger_-

_I'm not here!_ What _was_ that? Why did it seem to echo in his head, pulling his lips back into a snarl? _Oh god, I'm not here, go away…._

He'd only heard that hiss from a distance, crackled with static over an intercom, mixed with screams. Even now it was distorted, off; twisted by the hardness around him, the scrape of claws against the floor. But he knew what it was.

_A Hollow. A Hollow's here. Hunting me. _

Which - shouldn't be a problem. If he were dead.

He wasn't breathing oxygen. He couldn't feel his own heartbeat. And he should, when he was this frightened. Shouldn't he?

Yet he could feel his blood pulsing through his veins - cold, then burning hot. He could taste, and hear, and :_feel._:

:_Transparent shell. Hard metal cabinets he'd piled as a barricade, tumbled away from the gaping opening of the office door. Flexing flow of muscle and nerves, stalking around him…._:

Not sight. Though it built images in Juushirou's head, oddly like the graphics from a sonar mapping program he'd checked the tolerances of a year or two back. It _felt_ more like listening, somehow; like dropping a coin in a darkened room, its silvery rattle flashing light over every shape and solidity.

:_Hunger! Hate! Lonely - oh, so lonely…._:

Juushirou sucked in an acid-tainted breath, fighting that crushing, terrible aloneness. God, it was worse than he'd ever imagined. Bad enough to think of the Hollows as mindless victims, rabid animals driven to hunt and infect and kill. This… this was conscious. _Aware._ The Hollow knew it was a monster, and knew he wasn't, and it was drowning in the horrible _aloneness_, and it wanted to _not-be-alone_, even if-

_It… wants… me._

No.

_No!_

:_Mine!_: lashed at him. :_Mine - or prey-_:

:_Neither!_:

Hardness cracked, and Juushirou lunged into light. The base's emergency LEDs flickered over mottled skin stretched taut over a distorted, fanged skull; cast horrifying glints along whiplashes of slick, razor-edged tentacles.

_So slow. Why is it so slow?_

And why, in the name of everything holy and little green apples, was he jumping _toward_ the monster?

But the world was fangs and snarls and blood, razored coils of muscle straining, :_pulses_: hammering against each other like a thunderstorm in his spine-

:_Worry,_: came an oddly softer touch in the bloody whirlwind. :_Ally-near, ally-coming. Hang on!_:

The Hollow flinched, attention split.

_Strike!_ something in his soul commanded. _Now!_

A long-unused Aikido throw let Juushirou knock the beast from its feet. Wrapping a twist of will around his hands, he clawed back muscle and ribs like cardboard, and-

Reached _without_ his hands, two coils of muscle holding back the Hollow's tentacles. Another lashed like a razor whip, strangling its spine. The last dug in deep, shredding its hearts.

Juushirou fell to his knees in the spreading pool of blood, breathing hard, watching the Hollow spasm and twitch. He could feel his heartbeat now, he realized… no. _Hearts_ beat. _I'm not like that… I'm not a monster… but I- oh god…._

"Way to go, Ukitake," came a familiar chuckle of a voice. A long katana slashed out, stilling the twitching. "But these things patch up real fast. You've got to kill it a little more thoroughly-"

"Shunsui?" Juushirou whispered, shivering. Odd; he hadn't noticed until now that he was naked. And cold. "You've got to stay back. I'm-" _a monster, oh god…._ "It slashed me, I'm infected-"

"No." Hands caught his, careless of the blood. Juushirou stared at them, mesmerized by their familiar-and-not shapes; those were Shunsui's hands, but where were all his hard-earned calluses, from guns and military training and the major's quiet, lone practice of iaido? And - was that a bathrobe? "No, you're not. Juushirou. _'Shirou._ Look at me."

Bathrobe, definitely, Juushirou noted, raising his gaze inch by trembling inch. Over a pair of pink-camo sweatpants from somewhere, but a bathrobe just the same. Sheath in his belt. Some kind of pack thrown over his shoulder. Familiar handsome face, familiar brown eyes that for one moment glinted odd, alien silver-

"Easy," Shunsui murmured, tightening his grip before Juushirou could jerk back. "Easy…."

_He's not eating me. He came to help._ Juushirou blinked, finally placing what was off about his friend's face. "Why is your hair moving?"

"Let you know when I figure that out." Shunsui grinned tiredly at him. :_Friend. Kin. Not-alone._:

:_Not-alone,_: Juushirou echoed back in a knee-weakening rush of relief, wrapping himself around that warm sense of :_kin._:

"Urk. 'Shirou. _Air_."

"Sorry." Juushirou pulled back - and stopped, halted by the oddest of tugs. "Ah…."

"Wonderful. We're tangled." But Shunsui was - snickering?

Definitely snickering, Juushirou decided, what he knew _should_ be soul-shaking horror somehow losing out to… well, embarrassment. Here he was doing his level best to gibber in a corner, while Shunsui was radiating :_worry_: and :_relief_: and :_other Hollows near, we have to get moving._: "I feel them too," the analyst admitted, sensing wrongness - not too near, but far too close for comfort. "Er. How do we…?"

"Well," Shunsui gave him a wry grin, and gestured to their knot of limbs, "the white furry ones are yours, and the brown furry ones are mine."

Furry. He… really wasn't going to think about that right now. "Um…."

"Kind of helps if you think about it like moving your tongue," Shunsui offered. At Juushirou's dubious look, a brown eyebrow shot up. "C'mon, a sweet guy like you must have had to beat the ladies off with a stick in college. You never got _creative_ with your tongue?"

Juushirou reddened. He'd been a little too busy battling classes and his own limitations to have much energy for… creativity. And contrary to popular belief, most young ladies weren't _that_ interested in a boyfriend who wasn't supposed to survive long enough to graduate. "Well…."

"Ah!" Shunsui mourned. "Another young life, sucked in by computers, tragically isolated from the delights and inexplicable furies of the fairer sex. We get out of this, I am _so_ getting you laid. You, me, some wine and pretty girls…."

Obviously, death by monster instead of Strickland's Disease wasn't nearly ironic enough for the universe. He was going to drop dead of sheer embarrassment, right here, naked in a splatter of monster guts. Ick.

Only Shunsui was right about something, darn it, because the knots of alien muscle had loosened enough that they could slip free of each other. Emphasis on _slip_, as Shunsui caught his hand again before he hit the floor. "There's an emergency shower-pull in the bathroom down the hall," the major pointed out. "It'll be cold, but we can at least get you cleaned up." He shifted the pack on his shoulder. "And I've got something I think should fit you."

"Pink camo?" Juushirou asked warily.

"You think I'd have a pink camo bathrobe?"

_Not going to think about it_, Juushirou decided. He was naked, sticky, and itchy, with blood and who-knew-what splattered various unpleasant places, and _any_ kind of running water sounded like heaven.

Even if they might have to walk through monsters to get to it.

_He's holding it together. I'm not going to slow him down._ "Let's go," Juushirou said decisively. "But - what _happened?_"

"Tell you in the shower," Shunsui nodded, heading for the door. "I'm going to need a drink for this. Guess I'm going to have to settle for water…."

* * *

"C-c-cold!"

Leaning against a sink safely up-slope from the shower-pull, Shunsui forced a grin, watching as Juushirou scrubbed off under the sheeting spray. "Hey, they made 'em for rinsing, not fun." He could still :_feel_: at least five Hollows in the vicinity, but only one had deliberately charged them. It hadn't lasted long - and it'd howled when it died, in a way that still set his teeth on edge.

The other Hollows had felt quieter after that. He didn't like it.

"Never would have guessed," Juushirou got out between chattering teeth, squelching barefoot across wet tiles to grab handfuls of paper towels. "Why do they h-have these here, anyway? We're not near the labs."

"Safety precaution." The major shrugged. "In case somebody got careless."

"Is that what you think happened?" Juushirou turned away to pull on urban gray-and-white sweatpants, frowning. "Someone got careless?"

"Honestly? No clue whatsoever." Shunsui watched his friend's back, literally; pale skin blending into a dusting of silver hairs at each tentacle's base, alien muscle shivering off beads of moisture. Evidently 'Shirou's fur was just as sleekly water-repellent as his own. "Urahara, Shihouin, the Shibas - they might be a little flaky outside the lab, sure. But inside? Nothing but business. Even that visiting RIH guy, Ishida; he seemed solid. I wouldn't swear all the techs were a hundred percent careful all of the time, but-" A thought occurred to him. "How much do you know about the Hollows?"

Juushirou turned back toward him, raising a silvery brow. "Data analysis, remember?"

Shunsui snorted, letting one of his own tentacles uncoil. Didn't _quite_ feel as weird now as it had waking up. Which was scary all by itself. "I think we can safely throw out clearances for anybody still _alive_ in this mess." Casually, alert for any sign of panic in the younger man's stance, he approached, bathrobe over his arm. "Here. Let me give you a hand with this."

Juushirou tensed. Forced himself to relax. "Fruit bats?"

"What? They were cute."

Rolling his eyes, the data analyst put one arm into a sleeve - and froze, as Shunsui latched onto a tentacle. Swallowed dryly, and let the officer guide it through the slits he'd cut in black terrycloth. "That…."

"I'm not hurting you, am I?"

"…No."

Interesting. As was what he was seeing - or not seeing - on Juushirou's chest. "Where are your scars?"

His friend stood still as Shunsui laid a hand on pale skin, feeling for any trace of the thick ropes of keloid tissue. These days drugs could contain the station-bred fungus that caused Strickland's, and researchers were making noises about having finally found something that would kill an ongoing infection, but years ago when Ukitake had been diagnosed, the only option was surgery. Juushirou didn't know it, but he'd been on Major Kyouraku's watch list from the moment he'd set foot in Project Tatterdemalion's labs. Not because he was a security risk - the man could keep his mouth closed better than some officers Shunsui could name - but because he was missing two-thirds of his lungs. And what was left didn't work so well. Any security plan that didn't take into account his supplemental oxygen would kill him by default.

There'd been no plan for this. There'd been no _time_.

Warm skin under his hands. Muscle, bone, and air moving under both of them. "Deep breath?"

No mistake. Along with that odd flutter that had to be one of the extra hearts… Juushirou was _breathing_. Easily. With lungs that shouldn't be there. Add to that his own creaky knees that weren't creaking, and the banged-up-by-gunfire shoulder that hadn't complained once since he woke up… Shunsui stored that thought for later, and helped Juushirou get everything else tucked through the right holes. Waited until he was tying the belt, and caught that same tentacle again. "Mind if I take a look?"

A shiver. "How can you be so calm?"

_Training_, should have been the official answer. But Juushirou was fighting to strangle his fear in a situation no data analyst had ever trained for, and both their chances would be better if he kept that grip. "Half an hour ago, I wasn't," Shunsui said honestly. "I was just starting to break out when a Hollow found me, and I found a pretty solid chair, and - well, I've been in knife fights before. Adrenaline covereth a multitude of 'what the hell's." He shrugged. "After that… I keep a stack of mental note-cards for 'what to do when the situation goes FUBAR'. None of them exactly covered this, but - I got back to my office, got some supplies, and started looking for anybody else. And here we are." He gave Juushirou a sober look, still stroking white fur. Thick, and luxuriously soft; reminded him of a seal's pelt. "Think you can help me talk down other survivors?"

Another breath, and Juushirou nodded. "You think there will be more of us?"

_Us._ The word tugged oddly at his attention, warm and full of promise. "Definitely. If what Urahara put over the intercom was right-"

"Urahara was on the intercom?"

The white-furred coil was melting into his strokes, a wide area near the tip unrolling to reveal an underside spiky with fanglike barbs. _Wow. We're better armed than I thought._ "Yeah," Shunsui said. "He- what's the last thing you remember?"

"Telling the stragglers in my office to stop being stupid and get to the shelters," Juushirou said honestly. "I saw one of the video clips from the lab. They're so _fast_."

_And you knew you'd never make it_, Shunsui finished silently. Damn. That had taken guts.

"I meant to barricade myself in," Juushirou went on. "The way the cabinets were - I must have. But I don't remember it."

"I'm going to take a wild guess, and say the vaccine hit you faster than it did me," Shunsui stated. "Things started getting fuzzy right about the time Colonel Hughes tossed me out of the safe rooms. I woke up almost at my office, so I must have been still moving for a while-"

"He _what?_"

Yipe, nearly got nicked there. _Note to self: Toothed side of tentacles is sharp._ "Long story short," Shunsui said wryly, stroking away like he would an aggravated cat, "and bear in mind Urahara was talking _very_ fast - our friendly neighborhood mad scientist said he and the Shibas had something that ought to work for a vaccine. Worked in the mice, at least. They wanted more time to test it. General Yamamoto said we didn't _have_ more time. So they put their concoction under pressure and pumped it through the whole base. Things got a little misty in the room, I started feeling feverish…." And like things had literally been crawling under his skin, but he really didn't want to think about that. Especially since it probably hadn't been his imagination.

'Shirou gave him a definite fishy look. "Totally ignoring how they managed to break into what's supposed to be a multiply-sealed, self-contained ventilation system-"

"I'm getting the feeling _Urahara_ and _secure_ should not be used in the same sentence, true," Shunsui admitted.

"-Mass exposure of a substance untested in humans to the whole base without their consent-"

"They were going to nuke us, 'Shirou."

Juushirou blanched.

"I know it sounds extreme, but Yamamoto's bosses have to think about the whole planet. Not to mention, if this stuff got off-world-"

"Are they _insane?_" Juushirou tapped the black cloth over his ribs. "Strickland's sporulates, Shunsui. That's why they cut it out. Heat and radiation kill a lot of things, but that's if you keep them _contained_. An explosion might just spread little bits right up into the jetstream, and _then_ where would we be?"

Oh. So _that's_ why Urahara and the Shibas - and even that ordinarily cool Ishida - had been all but clawing their way through the intercom to get Yamamoto-Genryuusai to change his mind. He could see it now: bits of Hollow wafted up into the upper atmosphere, raining down on an unsuspecting populace and spaceport, carried off-world with the next departing freighters…. _Oh, shit._

Then again…. "Madsen's Hollow's a retrovirus, not a fungus."

"It's an alien. It came out of an asteroid. Do you know it doesn't form spores? And - _Madsen's_ Hollow?" Juushirou glanced roughly eastward. "Isn't that-"

"It _was_ a prospectors' patch about twenty klicks that way, yeah," Shunsui acknowledged, thinking of the little almost-town that wasn't there anymore. Thank god the place was, like the Project's base, smack in the middle of dry nowhere. "Colonel Hughes thermited the place."

"And brought samples back here? Oh, hurray," Juushirou said faintly.

"Closest lab with bio-containment facilities," the major shrugged.

A silver brow arched, and Juushirou wriggled an unheld tentacle. "Oh yes. _Very_ contained."

Shunsui gave him a sheepish grin, and deliberately held up his free hand in plain view. Clenched and unclenched his fingers, razor-sharp claws sliding in and out, white as bone. "Found these yet?"

"…Erk."

"But we are contained, or we'd be smoking rubble right now," Shunsui said seriously. "Problem is, no one knows how the infection got loose in the base. Maybe a lab mouse bit somebody. Maybe somebody cut their clean suit and, like an idiot, didn't report it. Maybe one of my guys who went with the colonel got careless. Maybe a piece of the goddamned asteroid got washed down the drain. I don't know, and it sure as hell sounded like the bio team didn't know. But if we can walk uninfected people out of here, we can pull out and do whatever it takes to wipe the place clean the right way."

"Uninfected," Juushirou said numbly.

"We're vaccinated, 'Shirou. Scout's honor."

"You were never a Scout," Juushirou accused him.

True. How had 'Shirou known? "We're still alive, right? They must think it worked."

"For a certain twisted definition of _worked_, maybe… would you stop that? You make me feel like- like- Oh, damn it!"

Whoof. All-over hug. Again. Too bad 'Shirou wasn't part of the female half of the human race, or this would be even more comfy-

Newly-silver hair met brown, and the world whited out.

:_Mine? Kin? Not-alone?_:

:_Agreement. Mine. Pack._:

:_Dissent. Pack is more-than-two. Is others. Young. Territory._:

:_Others, will find. Young, will seek. Territory…._

:_We_ take.:

The pulse blazed through their nerves, raced away through walls and corridors. Echoed oddly, flickers of _here_ and _here_ and _here_-

:_You dare! Weaklings! We_ eat _you!_:

"Hollows," Shunsui growled into Juushirou's shoulder, feeling fine brown prickle free of silver-white. _So that's why it moves. It's not really hair._

"Never would have guessed," his partner quipped, letting their tentacles slip free of each other. Stepping over to Shunsui's pack, he pushed aside juice packs and chocolate bars, dug out the other katana, and thrust it through his belt in one smooth motion.

"How did you-?"

"Know it was there?" Juushirou blinked. "I… you knew."

"…Right." His turn to swallow dryly. "'Shirou? Know how I said I was handling this?"

Juushirou crossed the space between them in blurred swift strides, cupped the side of his face in clawed fingers. "We're alive. We're going to _stay_ alive. Someone else is out there; you felt them, just like I did. They _need_ us." He stepped back, shoulders straight. "And _nothing_ does what the Hollows did, and gets away with it."

Yeah. Yeah, he could work with that. "We need a plan."

"Kill them all?" Juushirou offered.

And he'd thought his ninja gaming partner was such a sweet, naïve, _quiet_ soul. Damn. This was going to be _fun_. "Not bad for starting tactics, but your strategy could use a little work." Shunsui grinned at him, plotting out a path in his head to that nearest touch of :_kin_: as he strode toward the bathroom door. Outside were Hollows. They could both feel it.

But Juushirou was only steps behind him. _Precise_ steps behind him; just the distance one of his old teachers had said was right, to cover a partner with another sword.

_Or to reach out with a tentacle…._

"First lesson," Shunsui breathed, lifting a foot to kick the door. "Follow me - and don't die."

* * *

Horror movies lied, Toushirou Hitsugaya thought furiously, tasting dust and blood. The twelve-year-old dug his fingers into smooth metal, kicking furiously at the barbed rope of muscle that had whipped around his knee, slammed him into the air duct's walls, and was now trying to yank him out like a particularly stubborn cork from a fragile bottle.

In the movies, this would never happen. The monster was either tiny and numerous and all through the air ducts, or far too large to do more than claw at a grate. The computer he knew was still hooked up in the office on the other side of the wall would be up and running, not shut down by automatic safety protocols; and it'd be hackable by someone his age, and attached not to a mundane printer and internet line, but to some kind of improbable equipment that could actually _do_ something to swat the monster.

Most of all, in movies, the victims all somehow deserved what they got. The doting wife and mother was actually cheating on her husband, or plotting to sacrifice her firstborn to evil. The stern but likeable father was a closet abuser, or plotting to sell the insane science to an enemy government, or had a Dark Secret in his past, or _something_.

This didn't happen. This _couldn't_ happen.

:_Come here, boy!_:

A blast of loneliness, and longing, and why was _what-belonged-to-him_ trying to _get away_-

The flesh wrapped around him rippled. Stung, like a thousand jellyfish tentacles; hot agony lancing into the artery running up his leg. A pulse of :_triumph_:-

One breath. Two.

:_Puzzlement._:

Toushirou kept breathing as the pain faded, something black and noxious dripping out from under the tentacle's grip on his skin.

:_Fury! Not-mine, should-be-mine, not changing, _why-:

"Go to hell!" Toushirou spat, adding a few choice insults that would have had his mother washing his mouth out with soap. Only his mother was-

He wouldn't think about the screams. The splash of red he'd glimpsed through the ductwork before darkness had rolled over him. The crunch and slurp of decaying flesh that had been his wake-up call. He _would not think about it_.

Breathe. Dig fingers in harder, feeling and hearing the screech as metal tore under his fingertips. Which wasn't right. Fingernails didn't shred steel, no matter how desperate you were. Not even in movies.

-And damn it, the corpse-eating bastard was trying to shred his leg, and he could :_feel_: another tentacle whipping through the vent toward him-

_He will not kill me!_

A chill within his soul; a soothing cold that reached out, and braced coils against the duct walls to send him hurtling backward. Toushirou felt bony barbs loosen, :_felt_: alien hearts and lungs quicken, preparing to strike, as his fa-

_My enemy!_

It was him. And it wasn't. _He_ wanted to-

_Scream._

Cry.

_Strike!_

Run.

_Live!_

Die, like the rest of his family had died….

_Winter's child_, listen.

An endless solitude of snow stretched within his mind; the chill beauty he'd lost when his parents followed their hush-hush physics work to this awful, dry, dusty place. The crispness of chill air, the clean, clear winter light glinting off ice-sheathed trees….

Blizzard howled from his hands, sent enemy tentacles writhing back with an ear-piercing shriek.

Shaking, Toushirou caught himself on cold steel. He was panting as if he'd run a mile; the gray tones of the duct swam in front of his eyes. _What… was that?_

_I live!_ something exulted in him. _I strike the enemy!_

_You're… not me…._

_No?_ Snow, and coiling scales, and a sense of strength endless as cloud-strewn sky. _Then_ we _live. My-Toushirou-_ move!

:_Rage_: battered him, shattering wall and duct and protective ice in a screech of cutting heat.

_Bleeding_, Toushirou realized, air _whoof_ing out of his lungs as the blast flung him against the inside of a wall. _It didn't touch me. How am I bleeding?_

Distantly he heard his skull crack against concrete, and knew that was bad. The floor reared up and hit him, and the monster was hissing toward him, and he couldn't move-

"Stay down!"

A voice. A _human_ voice.

:_Help here_: whispered over his skin like a blanket. :_Hang on._:

But crashing over it all was a spine-hammering :_bloodlust_: and :_our territory!_: and :_away from our young one!_:

Steel flashed and :_flashed_: in his senses as they harried the monster through the office. Toushirou blinked, trying to reconcile two visions of the world. The chill whisper in his soul drank in swordplay like water in the desert, seeing blades as _longer claws, yes! Want!_

And they were _better_ than claws, because the steel :_felt_: like- like-

_Metal let us flow, let us focus_, the dragon-whisper noted. _Metal claws would guide our strike. Make it reach, make it stronger…._

_Heat_ tingled his senses as the monster brought two tentacles together over its back. Toushirou gasped for breath. "Look out!"

Red blazed out at one of his rescuers, scorching sword-arm and shoulder like a laser before the brown-haired man could dodge.

"Hai!" His paler partner leapt up and over, slashed down-

Blue-white fury struck with the blade, lashing like miniature lightning.

Two bodies hit the floor. The monster's ever-shifting skin stilled, blanched to leaden gray. Smoke rose from its spine, twisted from the end of each seared, crumbling tentacle.

Quietly, Toushirou began to cry.

"'Shirou." The brown-haired man in the spattered bathrobe and pink sweatpants stumbled over to the dead beast, free hand pressed to his healing shoulder. "What. The. Hell?"

"I… don't know." The white-haired man sounded as exhausted as Toushirou felt. "It was hurting him, and then it hurt you, and I wanted to _stop_ it, and… there was a whisper…."

"I want to live." Toushirou got out, swiping at tears with the back of his hand. "I w-won't let him kill me… but that _I_ isn't _me_, it's _not_, and it's in my _head_ and I can't get it _out_-"

_My-Toushirou doesn't want me?_ Confusion. Sadness, in the pulse of protective bloodlust. _Want you. Protect you. My-Toushirou brings the pack, makes us not-alone._

And there were arms and fur wrapping around him, quelling that awful sense of _alone_. But the fur was tentacles, he had to get away-!

_"Purr…."_

_Safe_, insisted the dragon in his head, urging him to go boneless in 'Shirou's grip. _Safe, enemy dead, adults here._

And it was warm, and that purr felt so good in his bones, and there was cloth he could cry into. He leaned into the man's shoulder, hearing a higher-pitched purr join in. _Like a kitten_, Toushirou realized, almost giggling.

…_Oh god. That's_ me.

"I thought it was my imagination," 'Shirou murmured between purrs. "I needed to fight the Hollows to stay alive. Why shouldn't I imagine something else in my head? Something that _wants_ to fight."

"That explains a lot," his friend muttered. Stood there a moment, as if listening. "Huh. I can feel it. It's pretty quiet… then again, I'm used to running on survival instincts. And I'm betting you two aren't. So they have to be louder."

"Is that what you think this is?" 'Shirou asked. "Some kind of - amplified survival reflex?"

"Dunno. Dr. Shiba said something about the virus going after higher brain functions… then again, he also said he was stomping that in the vaccine." The brunet flexed his sword hand, grimacing. "What do you know, looks like we patch up quick too."

"That, is _not_ survival instinct." 'Shirou nodded toward charcoaled flesh.

"No, I don't think so," the brunet agreed dryly. "I'd say that's psychokinesis."

"What?"

"Specifically, electrokinesis." The brunet pointed into the gaping hole in the wall, where ice still glinted. "And that, would be cryokinesis."

"That's not funny," 'Shirou said blankly, tentacles clutching Toushirou close as his shaking hands unwrapped a chocolate bar. He broke it in half, and offered the boy the piece he wasn't munching on.

_I'm not a baby, I don't need-_ His stomach growled. _Oh, fine._

Odd. Usually he didn't like chocolate. This actually tasted good.

"Not joking." The brunet slammed through various file cabinet drawers, stopped and pulled out a folded blue dress shirt. "Don't think Dr. Hitsugaya's going to miss this." He held it out to them. "Shunsui Kyouraku. The sweetheart sharing his candy is Juushirou Ukitake. Not sure I've met you, which makes me wonder exactly how you got onto this base-"

"Through the front gate, like anybody else!" Toushirou burst out. "You think I'd be _here_ if my parents let me be anywhere _else?_" He winced, and shrank back against Juushirou's shoulder. "…Toushirou Hitsugaya."

"You're- Oh, shit." Draping the cotton over him, Shunsui looked at the still-smoking monster, the bits of Hollow cocoon glued to the wall Toushirou hadn't come out of, the… remnants… still rotting in the corner, painted nails gleaming scarlet. "Damn, kid. And I thought _my_ day sucked."

"I thought you knew everyone here," Juushirou said wryly, stroking the boy's head.

"Hey, last time I saw him, he had black hair and brown eyes," Shunsui said defensively. "It's not like _you_ match your ID anymore."

Toushirou blinked, peering sideways at the wild white tendrils drifting under Juushirou's clawed fingers. Glanced a question upward.

"They're green," Juushirou smiled back. "You look like a pixie."

"I _do not!_"

"A really pissed off pixie," Shunsui chuckled. "Kind of fits. 'Magic' and all."

"Psychokinesis?" Juushirou let a white brow climb. "We're not Quincys."

"You never know. I've heard there's a fair amount of people who could be, that the program never finds." Shunsui shrugged. "Sometimes adrenaline can kick it off. You needed it, you _did_ it, you headed straight for the chocolate afterwards – couple of days ago, I could've shown you my scars from getting between a Quincy and chocolate - and it looks like you both used metal to amplify and direct it." He prodded at the raw wound on his shoulder; winced, and tapped his wrist. "Quincys usually use a little cross. Easy to hide until they get in range of their target. We're lucky that Hollow didn't have the brains to grab onto something metal; that was definitely destructive telekinesis it hit me with…."

The adults stared at each other. "That's how it got out," Juushirou whispered.

Shunsui was shaking his head, not wanting to believe. "I saw the living samples, 'Shirou. None of the animals-"

"None of the _animals_. Probably not even most of the humans. But if it infected someone who could have been a Quincy? Even _one?_"

"I thought they were working on physics here," Toushirou objected, puzzled. "Not biotech."

A sidelong adult glance. "So, you think we're working on Quincy physics here, huh?" Shunsui said casually.

_Oh, please._ Toushirou gave the man a _look_. "My parents had to talk about _something_ over dinner."

"I'm somewhat more concerned with Hollow physics," Juushirou said grimly. "You say the base is contained?"

"No question. Or they'd have-"

Juushirou pointed to the hole in the wall.

"…Oh, this day just keeps getting better." Grim-faced, Shunsui swiped bits of wall and slime off the hardened computer keyboard, tapped a key to bring up the opening screen.

Toushirou rolled his eyes. "That's not going to work. It's user-locked."

"Uh-huh. I've been working security longer than you've been alive. There's always a way in. If you've got the right clearance." Ostentatiously stretching his fingers, Shunsui clattered away on the keyboard.

_Invalid user logon._

"Clearance," Toushirou smirked. "Right." He squirmed loose to stand on wobbly feet; straightened his shoulders, cracked his own knuckles, and moved in.

Shunsui was shaking his head. "You don't have the kind of clearance we need to-"

"I've got an account," Toushirou pointed out. "Just for schoolwork, but it'll get me on here. If you're such a hot-shot security guy, you don't need any more than that, right?"

Shunsui eyed him, then grinned, and ruffled short white tendrils. "I like the way you think."

Huh. At least somebody did. Was it his fault his parents were physics geeks, but he'd rather be painting snowscapes on the computer? "Just give me a minute…."

_Invalid user logon._

"That should have worked," Toushirou said numbly. He didn't _get_ computers wrong. For this one to slam that in his face, was like - like being _dead_….

"I think I see a pattern," Juushirou murmured. "Toushirou? If you did know someone else's password to log on with, I doubt you'll get in trouble for it now."

Shunsui's eyebrows bounced, but he shrugged, and ostentatiously turned away to watch the door.

Biting his lip, Toushirou entered his father's username and password. He was the one who'd used this computer last, it should unlock-

_Invalid user logon._

"Didn't work?" Shunsui shook his head, not turning around. "How'd you know?"

"I didn't," Juushirou said practically. "Data analyst, remember? It's my job to find patterns." Breath hissed between his teeth. "Look, you said something about there not being any security plan that covered this, right?"

"Alien infectious DNA?" Shunsui snorted. "No, I don't think so-"

"So, what does the _closest_ plan you can think of do to base computer access?"

The brunet frowned. "Infectious outbreak, personnel possibly compromised due to delirium, panic, you name it-" He slapped a hand to his forehead, and started cursing with imagination and at length, using words a wide-eyed Toushirou was sure dated back to pre-space Earth. "Argh. You _don't_ want compromised personnel in the computer system. Security locks the place down, and you do a headcount. Anybody outside a secure area gets their access yanked. _Damn_ it."

"We need to find another way," Juushirou said intently. "We need to find more people. We need to get word out, somehow. Before we run out of luck. So far, the Hollows have only attacked us one at a time; if they decided to mob us-"

Toushirou swallowed dryly. "Um. Think the phones still work?"

The pair looked at each other. Looked at him.

_Ack! What is it with these guys and hugging?_


	2. Apocalypse How

_Chapter 2: Apocalypse How_

Leaning back against a lab bench, Dr. Isshin Shiba finished off the last of his coffee with a contented sigh. _I am the luckiest man in the world._

Well, sure, he was trapped in a sealed underground desert base full of mutated cannibalistic beasts that used to be some of his coworkers. And, yes, he'd woken up cracking out of a weird chrysalis, to a pair of sweaty, worried, stressed-out lab partners, whose stunned looks were all the warning he needed to know their vaccine had… _interesting_ side effects. Effects General Yamamoto-Genryuusai didn't yet know about, or he'd likely have led some of his remaining men into the Hollow-infested corridors just to shoot them all.

But. The bio labs were well sealed off, with plenty of running water and enough food and plain medical scrubs to keep them going at least another week. What information they could get from cameras outside the labs and main shelter area confirmed what Masaki and Yoruichi Shihouin had worked out of Hollow biology: with no mobile food in the area, the bastards had slipped into a crocodile-like torpor, which would buy everybody some time. Kisuke's chrysalis was starting to make a few soft noises, which from the mice results and his own experience meant his crazy friend would be waking up soon. And best of all, the woman he loved most in the world _had_ been successfully vaccinated, and was currently giving old man Yama one hell of an ear-full.

"-For the last time, these people wake up sane!" Dr. Masaki Shiba all but gritted out. "We've run mass-spec on the surface compounds. They're _not_ much different from those on Hollow chrysalides, meaning they're highly neurotoxic, which is probably the only reason Hollows don't eat infectees before they hatch out…. _No, they are not Hollows!_" One hand fisted in blonde hair; released the strands before she yanked. "If you're not going to think about the living, _innocent_ people you'll kill if you shoot those cocoons - and let's not even get into the ones you _threw out to die!_ - think of the rest of your people! One bullet impact could vaporize enough neurotoxic material to kill everyone in the shelter, and- Sir! Don't-" She glared at the receiver. "He hung up on me."

"You did call him an idiot," Dr. Ryuuken Ishida pointed out.

"Not in a way I thought he'd notice… oh." Masaki leaned back into her husband's hands. "Oh, you can just stay right there…."

Grinning, Isshin worked his fingers deeper into tension-knotted muscle, mug discarded out of the way on a bench. "He's not going to shoot Yoruichi, love. Kisuke would kill him."

Ryuuken pushed up his glasses; an antique affectation, in these days of corrective surgeries. "Not funny, Shiba."

"We're not laughing," Masaki pointed out. "Kisuke… well, he acts like the life of the party. But his heart wasn't really in it, before they met. If she doesn't make it-" She shook her head.

"She'll make it," Isshin assured her. "The mice did."

"Useful a model as they are, Shiba, humans are not mice," Ryuuken said precisely.

"Maybe not. But I did."

"Mm-hmm," Masaki agreed. "But we all know you're insanely lucky."

"Damn straight," Isshin said without a trace of false modesty. "You said yes, didn't you?"

Masaki blushed as he dropped a kiss on her cheek. Ryuuken groaned. "Can't you two take that into a storage closet?"

Given his hands had better things to do, Isshin looped a few tentacles together to approximate a certain well-known hand signal.

"Oh, _very_ mature." The Republic Institute of Health's travelling inspector gave a frustrated sigh. "You do realize that the moment anyone in the secure area currently transforming wakes up, the general will realize what we _haven't_ told him. And after he shoots that unfortunate soul, and the rest not yet conscious, he's going to shoot _us_."

Interesting. Ryuuken sounded more disgusted than afraid. "I'm working on it," Isshin shrugged.

"Tell him the truth?" Masaki suggested.

"Masaki, my love. I adore you. I worship you. I want to raise wonderfully smart, stubborn, world-terrorizing kids with you. But you've got to be just a _little_ bit crazy as I am, 'cause, well…." He shrugged black-furred tentacles. "This is the kind of thing that usually causes people to call for a divorce. At light speed."

Smiling, Masaki shook her head. "Don't be an idiot, Isshin."

"Ah, now the lady wants miracles," Ryuuken muttered.

"I've been watching the mice," his wife went on. "They're fine." Masaki tapped on the transparent enclosure, where a multitude of colored furballs were eating, sleeping, or running wheels. And where a few with tentacles were doing all of the above, plus avidly clambering walls even mouse toes hadn't let them climb before. "Our normal results think they're a little odd, but they've all been interacting for almost two days now, and I haven't seen any abnormal behavior."

"Certainly nothing like the sociopathic aggression we've seen in Hollows," Ryuuken allowed grudgingly. "If anything, they seem calmer. I suppose knowing you can easily shred your opposition might do that for anyone."

Masaki and Isshin traded a glance. Again, very strange words, from someone who claimed to be a simple health inspector. "Guess so," Isshin said easily. "What we really need is a neurochemistry expert. Not that we're going to get one of those in here any time soon-"

_Crackle…._

They were around the cracking chrysalis in seconds. Warned by the bruises he'd left on Ishida, Isshin reached down for the slick hand fumbling out of the shell before it could latch on to anyone else. "Hey."

"Ow…."

"That's my line," Isshin grinned. "We've got coffee out here."

"Coffee?" Gripping tight, Kisuke Urahara wobbled his way up out of the shell. Looked down. Side to side. Blinked.

"Blond?" Ryuuken muttered, surprised.

Naked, sticky, and shameless as ever, Kisuke looked them straight in the eye. "This is not the vaccine we were looking for."

Masaki pegged a paperweight at his head.

"Whoa!" Kisuke started, surprised as anyone else that one of his tentacles had snared the piece of polished pink quartz. "No respect for the classics."

"Says the guy who just mangled Obi-Wan Kenobi," Masaki quipped.

"Er…."

"You're not going to win this one, partner." Gently, Isshin shoved their bio-materials scientist and resident weird physics genius toward the waiting soap and sink spray hose.

"There's always hope for a draw." Startling gray eyes winked at him, alight with a spark of-

:_Companionship. Pack. Home._:

Isshin's jaw dropped. "What the-?"

Gray widened, stunned, as Kisuke caught his breath. "My preliminary hypothesis? The lab's EM shielding may be working just fine, but the _internal_ EM damping field isn't as thorough as we thought."

"So the Hollows aren't just emitting a field, they're actually using it as a sensory system?" Masaki's eyes lit up, intrigued - then narrowed with worry. "Isshin!"

"I thought it was just some lingering synesthesia from the way our nervous systems got rewired," he said sheepishly. "I mean, _tentacles_. Stuffed with almost as much neural tissue as muscle. I've still got no idea how our brains even managed to track that we have 'em. It's like phantom limb in reverse."

Ryuuken's eyes crossed. He shook his head, black hair flying, as if to rattle something loose. "I've been locked in here with you too long. That actually seemed to make sense."

"So what are you picking up?" Masaki peered at both of them, hopeful.

"Kind of… ghost images," Isshin admitted, closing his eyes for a better :_feel_.: "What's solid, what's not. Metal. Living things. Insulated stuff. It all feels different."

"And you definitely show up as different from all of the above," Kisuke noted. "Not just because of the extra hearts. You… pulse. Their… auras… don't." He frowned, and glanced at Masaki. "Add to the behavioral notes that it's a very," he hesitated, "positive reinforcement."

_Aw, he needs a hug_. Isshin hid his grin. _Maybe when he's not so slimy_.

"That would explain our affected mice," Masaki nodded. "They like to cuddle. Even with me, if I let them."

"But it doesn't explain the Hollows," Ryuuken stated. "They actively avoid each other."

"Of course they do," Kisuke muttered. "If you make an infectious weapon, you don't want it to stay clumped together."

_"What?"_

Isshin wasn't sure which of them yelped it first. Only that there was a disjointed babble of _crazy_ and _who would-?_ and _impossible_-

But it made sense, damn it. What were the odds of an extra-planetary asteroid carrying spores of retroviral transposons that just _happened_ to affect Earth-native mammals, and only Earth-natives? A virus, if you could call it that, that was more elegant and efficient than any gene-splicing he'd ever seen, reverse-transcribed genes locking into precise spots in their host's DNA to break it down into something completely new, and viable… and unrelentingly hostile.

_But there's nobody out there with this kind of biotech. The Satrapy's half a century behind us. The Confederacy's almost where we are, though I hear they've got some interesting tricks with engineered bone marrow we'd love to have, and they still send in agents trying to get hold of our Panimmunity techniques. There's rumors one or two of the independent systems play with making modified humans, but they haven't even come close to the lucky germ-line gene-mod break that gave us Quincys._ Nobody _could do this!_

"Kisuke, if you're right-" Masaki started.

"Then we're ground zero for a bioweapon that can get past cutting-edge Republic Panimmunity, and I just gave Yamamoto-Genryuusai all the ammunition he needs to sterilize this entire subcontinent, consequences be damned." Gray eyes were haunted as he stepped over the drain. "I know. But given _these_," he waggled muscled blond fur, "I'm amazed he hasn't already…." Kisuke's voice trailed off, and he gave them a look of sudden, unexpected amusement.

Masaki blinked innocently. Isshin glanced aside, whistling. Ryuuken coughed into his fist.

Kisuke cocked his head, one brow raised. "Our lab video feed is down." It wasn't a question.

"Electrical fault. Just awful," Masaki said virtuously. "When we get out of here, we have to track down who was in charge of maintenance. They _really_ slipped up."

"Oh, of course," Kisuke said, openly grinning. "And the general?"

"Is, at this time, lacking certain information he likely will find critical. Later," Ryuuken stated. "Though I really don't see why. We've managed to confirm that all the vaccinated mice _are_, in fact, resistant to the original infectious agent - and those with aberrant physiological responses are not contagious." He cleared his throat. "Do you have any idea how to break it to him?"

"Hmm." Grabbing the soap, Kisuke started scrubbing.

Isshin let out a relieved breath; met Masaki's smile as she laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. Urahara was on the problem. With any luck, they'd have a solution within the hour. It might not be pretty, it might not be fun, and it might leave common sense gasping in the dust - but this was the guy who had figured out how to harness the Hitsugaya-Cormac electron bi-location principle into a prototype mass transport device. When he whacked a problem, the problem _stayed_ whacked.

Though if Kisuke called it an "elementary Liaden-Clutch interstellar drive" again, the general was going to have an aneurysm.

_And then we'd have Colonel Hughes in charge, and that might actually be worse,_ Isshin thought. After all, the general might have ordered his surviving security personnel to toss out people reacting badly to the vaccine. Hughes had actually _done_ it.

_Yoruichi's just lucky there were Hollows outside when she started reacting, and he couldn't open the doors. There's got to be some way to get her and the others out of this-_

The phone rang.

Growling something physically improbable under his breath, Isshin snatched it. "Listen, General-"

"Dr. Shiba?"

Isshin straightened. That was- but Yamamoto had- "Hang on, Major. I'm putting you on speaker."

"Major Kyouraku?" Ryuuken's brows climbed. "The general gave us the impression that he, well-"

"Threw me out of the secure area when I started getting feverish?" the major said bluntly. "He did." A frustrated sigh. "You know, when it comes to command responsibility, he and the colonel probably made the right call. Speaking from a more _personal_ perspective… if he's listening, you can _respectfully_ tell him to stuff his _for the greater good_ speeches up his six, and consider this my damn _resignation!_" Ragged, calming breaths. "Not that any sane chain of command would want me in it, anymore…."

"The general is not on the line," Ryuuken said dryly. "Should we infer that you would have - uniform difficulties?"

"Um…."

Masaki gave her husband a shrug, and shook her head. "It's all right, Shunsui. Isshin has tentacles too."

"Huh," Kyouraku said after a dead silence. "Guess we could have tried knocking on your door after all. Then again, there's at least four Hollows between us and your lab, and they feel so quiet I _really_ don't like it. Anything that quiet is plotting something."

"Us?" Isshin traded an interested glance with Kisuke, who was washing suds out of wild blond tendrils. "You found more survivors?"

"Yeah…." His voice faded, as if he'd turned away from the receiver. "'Shirou, can you take the kid over there for a minute?"

_"I'm not a kid!"_

"Toushirou?" Masaki brightened. "Shunsui, was that Toushirou Hitsugaya? He's alive?"

"Live, and definitely kicking," Shunsui chuckled. His voice sobered. "I really want to get him to you if we can, ma'am. Right now Juushirou Ukitake's looking after him, but the last Hollow blasted a chunk out of my shoulder that's still not healed yet, we've only got two swords between us, and the Hitsugayas… well, his mom didn't make it. And his dad… _really_ didn't make it. If you know what I mean."

No, but Isshin could guess. And shivered.

"Swords?" Kisuke asked, squeezing water out of what passed for hair. "And how do you know there are four Hollows?"

"I'm somewhat more interested in _blasted_," Ryuuken said darkly.

"Ah, yes," Shunsui said brightly. "Well. I've got good news, and bad news."

"Good news?" Masaki ventured.

"I don't think it was one of your people who slipped up on containment," the major said plainly. "Some of these things are psychokinetic. Of the destructive telekinesis variety."

"Which would be the bad news," Isshin groaned.

"Actually, no, Dr. Shiba," Jyuushirou's voice cut in. "The _bad_ news would be that they're psychokinetic, desperately _lonely_ - and at least two of the three I've met were intelligent enough to realize that the way to be _not-alone_ was to catch someone else and transform them." A pause. "They're very, _very_ angry that they can't change us."

"Bets they're not trying to find a way into the secure area right now?" Shunsui added.

Isshin traded an uneasy glance with his coworkers. "If it's up to code, the shelter is reinforced to withstand standard Quincy-level psychokinetic assaults. And the Hollows near the shelter don't seem to be moving," Ryuuken observed. "But then, we're not security. There's a limit to how much of the base sensor net we can access."

"You've got more than we do," Shunsui's shrug was audible. "The Hollows we've run into seem pretty quiet until they feel us. Either we've got a better range than they do, or it takes them some time to wake up… anyway. Even if they're not trying to break out right now - and I'm not counting on that - what happens when we try to get out of here? I'm better than I thought, and 'Shirou and the kid both pulled a heck of a rabbit out of their hats, but I doubt we can hack up every Hollow on this base single-handed."

"Hack up?" Ryuuken echoed, disbelieving. "With _swords?_"

"That's what I said, yeah-"

"I thought you were joking!" The inspector pulled free a few black strands in utter, frustrated astonishment. "Major, you can't honestly expect us to believe you're using _bladed weapons_ against creatures we need _flamethrowers_ to kill?"

"I've been trying not to think about that too hard, true…."

"Flamethrowers?" Juushirou said blankly. "But - I - we-"

"Lowered Monster Difficulty?" Toushirou muttered.

Kisuke grinned suddenly. "I think it's more that you Took a Level in Badass."

Ryuuken stared at him.

"You get used to it," Masaki confided. "I'm semi-immune; I've had to deal with two dedicated tropers for years. One more doesn't bother me."

"Tropers?" Ryuuken said, lost.

"Got me," Shunsui admitted.

"Then when you bring the wine, I'll bring the internet access," Juushirou chuckled. "We can't have a good security officer walking around ignorant of the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality."

"_Four_ tropers, on the other hand, might be a bit much," Masaki mused. "Isshin? Translation, please?"

"The major knows his job," Isshin obliged. "If he says he's killing them with swords, he is."

"But that's im-"

"Which means," Isshin interrupted the inspector, "that somehow, he's doing as much cellular damage with a sword as a flamethrower would be. My guess? If some of the Hollows are psychokinetic - some of us probably are, too."

"Three for three, here," Shunsui admitted. "At least, I'm guessing that's why when I hit one with a chair, it _stayed_ down. And I felt like I'd done a couple of sprints too close together. Though I haven't come up with anything as flashy as 'Shirou and Toushirou, yet."

"I still don't know how I did that," Juushirou admitted.

"Want _real hard_ not to die," Toushirou said wryly.

"Anyone cleared for this level of security should have been screened for Quincy ability!" Ryuuken accused.

"Hello? This might be purely from the virus," Isshin pointed out. "Even if it wasn't - you come up with a sure test for that, you tell me. Active Quincy abilities, we can brain-scan for. Dormant? Good luck."

"No, bad luck," Masaki said grimly. "For us, at least. Depending on exactly how much memory survived the Hollow metamorphosis." At the massed blank looks, she added, "Juushirou, how do you _know_ they're lonely?"

"Please, anything that hostile would be," Ryuuken rolled his eyes. "And as for hostile - I think the hissing and attacking would be clue enough for that."

"You may be a health inspector, but you're not an animal behavior expert," Masaki observed. "Think. Any sensory mode is also a potential means of communication. You don't get _lonely_ from _hissing!_"

"She's right," Shunsui admitted after a pause. "It's creepy as hell, but… we can feel these things talking to us. Mostly threats. So far, they haven't been able to back those up." His voice softened. "Toushirou?"

"D-don't-"

"We wouldn't ask if it weren't important," Juushirou said gently. "I know it's hard…."

"He _ate_ her!" Toushirou erupted. "He knew who she was, but she was dead, and she wasn't like him, so he ate her! And he knew who I was, and all he wanted to do was make _me_ a monster! And if he couldn't do that-" Sobs came down the line, muffled in cloth.

"Better have a damn good reason for that, ma'am," Shunsui said grimly.

"She does," Isshin said, pieces fitting together in his head with a sickening click. "Believe me, she does." Together with his wife, he looked at Kisuke.

The blond gulped coffee, thinking furiously. "They've got at least part of their human memories. They're driven to infect new victims. They're talking to each other, meaning they're now spreading the idea that any human left on this base won't _be_ a possible victim…."

Ryuuken made a strangled noise. "They're not trying to break out. They're trying to break _in!_"

"To my physics lab." Kisuke stared down into his coffee, unable to meet their gaze. "I think I just killed the rest of the planet."

Silence, broken only by Toushirou's sobs.

"Dr. Urahara," Juushirou said at last. "I know this is difficult, we're all under a great deal of stress-"

"I think what my friend is trying to say is, _get your head out of your ass right now!_" Shunsui roared. "These things don't just yell what they're feeling, they light up in neon like New Las Vegas! If they were getting out of this base, we'd have felt it by now. We haven't. So they're _not_."

_You hope_, Isshin thought, and knew he wasn't the only one thinking it.

"So pull it together, call the general - and figure out how we can break your damn teleporter!"

* * *

"We're doomed," Yumichika Ayasegawa sighed artistically, checking the slide on his grenade launcher.

Ikkaku Madarame rolled his eyes. "'Course we are. It's Tuesday." Unfazed, he continued going over his own gear while the sarge conferred with the general in charge of this crazy hush-hush if-I-tell-you-I-have-to-shoot-you base. Most of their rapid-response unit was currently on the surface holding an armed perimeter around the evacuation shuttles, or escorting - if not outright manhandling - various shocked and terrified survivors up out the super-secret escape corridor some lone practical genius had designed into this joint. He, Yumichika, a few of the others… they were meant for something else.

_Strike team. Only what the hell are we striking? We've got enough ammo to level a small spaceport. But from the look on that colonel's face,_ he _doesn't think it's enough._

Colonel Hughes gave Ikkaku the willies, and not just because he looked at them like you might a bunny about to walk into a chainsaw. There was something _not right_ in the man's eyes. Something… not empty, he'd met plenty of psychopaths before. Briefly. Usually _very_ briefly. No, this was something… _fractured_.

_Whatever went wrong here, it broke him_. Ikkaku's eyes narrowed. _It sure as hell isn't going to break us._

"Project _Tatterdemalion?_" Yumichika repeated, staring at him. "Probably picked by some bureaucratic imbecile who thought he was being cute… the Tatterdemalion King? Hastur the Unspeakable, who warps the dimensions between the stars, He Who Must Not Be Named? One of the awful powers of the Cthulhu Mythos?" An affected shudder. "A creature of tentacles, slime, horrific mutations…."

"Cocoons?" Kaien Shiba's voice floated over to them.

_Never lose track of the rookies!_ Ikkaku berated himself, hustling over to the door Kaien had apparently just opened. Cournoyer and Thompson knew better than to wander off from their posts, but even after Sergeant Petrillo's best efforts to pound a proper combat-weary attitude into the guy, Kaien could _not_ seem to resist the urge to poke things.

Though at the moment, he wasn't actually poking anything inside the oversized storage closet - slash - mini-conference room he seemed to have found. Hadn't even crossed the threshold. Which was weird enough in itself to make Ikkaku bite his tongue on his lecture before it even started, and look.

Chairs, brooms, A/V equipment, bottles of floor cleaner-

Cocoons. Oh boy. Or maybe chrysalises, or whatever the word was for the kind of hard shiny translucent thing caterpillars used to turn into butterflies. If they'd been butterfly-sized, they would've been kind of pretty; ruddy amber, banded in three or four places with luminous blue and violet spots.

Given they were each upwards of five feet long… if he'd had any hair on his head, it'd have been standing _straight_ up.

"We're doomed," Yumichika croaked.

For once, Ikkaku believed him. _"Sarge!"_

"What are you- get away from there!" Red-faced, Colonel Hughes started forward.

Only to stop short, when he found Kaien blocking his way. "No offense, sir," the rookie said politely. "But I think this falls under _need to know_."

"As in, we really the hell need to know!" Ikkaku flung his two cents in. "What the _hell_ is this?"

Sarge took a look inside, eyes widening slightly before he cut a scowl across at General Yamamoto-Genryuusai. "Explain."

"I told you." The older man didn't flinch. "Some of our now-lost personnel came up with an emergency, inhaled inoculation against the virus. A certain percentage of those exposed had… less than favorable responses."

"The fully-developed cocoons are coated with neurotoxins," Hughes said in a low tone. "If anyone tripped over one, we'd have lost them to skin contact. Once we understood what was happening, all we could do was get the affected away from the rest of us."

"Why weren't we instructed to bring biohazard gear?" Sarge gritted out.

"It would only slow you down," Yamamoto-Genryuusai said coldly. "The inoculate cleared out of our air at least twenty-four hours ago. The Hollows can only infect you if they strike with a tentacle to a major artery - they prefer the neck - or if an infected person bites you and gets a considerable amount of saliva into the wound. Don't let that happen."

"And if it does, shoot them," Colonel Hughes said levelly. "You'll be doing them a favor."

Yumichika opened his mouth-

Ikkaku kicked him in the shin. "Don't say it."

His partner subsided, giving him a hurt-puppy look.

"But if this was a vaccine, not the virus… you're saying there are people alive in there?" Kaien exclaimed.

The colonel glanced at his CO. "There's _something_ alive in there…."

"Whatever it might be, it's compromised," the general said bluntly. "We thermite them with the rest of the base."

Whoa. Harsh. Which didn't mean the guy was _wrong_; he was a general, he got paid to make the tough calls. But Ikkaku thought he might be getting a clue why Hughes seemed so broken. Some of those guys were probably his.

"No reason to send in a strike team, then," Sarge said, just as blunt. "You have the data backups. We evacuate the survivors, and blow the place."

"It's not that simple-"

"No offense, General, but from where I'm standing, it is."

"Dr. Urahara has an unpleasant habit of updating his prototypes long before he updates his notes," Yamamoto-Genryuusai said coldly. "His work here is critical to keeping the Republic one step ahead of the Confederacy. Given that we're about to lose _him_ along with the base, we cannot afford to also lose the key focus circuitry as well."

Kaien's brows bounced up at the name _Urahara_, which raised one of Ikkaku's in turn. Sure, the kid had a weird habit of reading popular science journals instead of perfectly good porn, but why'd that jump out at him?

The general's eyes narrowed. "You have your _orders_, Sergeant Petrillo."

"Not without proper intel, General-"

"Sarge!" Cournoyer pointed across the room, where an incoming call light was flashing on one of the base telephones.

"Funny," Kaien moved deliberately before one of the locals could grab the phone, "I thought you said all the survivors were here."

If glares could kill, the rookie would've been a smoking hole in the floor. "All the evacuees _are_ here," the general ground out.

"Then who's trying to reach out and touch someone?" Not waiting for a response, Sarge picked up the receiver. "This is Sergeant Petrillo. Who is- hey, wait-"

"Sorry, but I think we need more than just you and the general in on this conversation," an oddly cheerful voice came out of the conference speaker.

Hughes blanched. "How did you-?"

"Oh, please, Colonel. We hacked the ventilation system. Do you really think the phone was that hard?" There was an odd thumping and yelling in the background, the kind that reminded Ikkaku of the time a bunch of drunken Marines had made the mistake of taking combat knives up against a gengineered grizzleo. Something _banged_, and they could hear bolts being shot home.

"Everyone in one piece?" the voice asked, not quite so cheerful. "Well, Colonel - or General, or whoever's in charge over there - we could use a hand, if you're up to it. The neighbors are getting a _bit_ ugly."

"Dr. Urahara, I presume," Sarge said dryly, watching Yamamoto-Genryuusai's face. "We'd appreciate intel on exactly how ugly."

A pause. "They're Hollows, Sergeant."

"Infective, with tentacles. Anything else we should know?"

A longer pause. Someone, sounded like two or three someones, started to protest before Urahara shushed them. "Colonel." His voice wasn't cheerful anymore, not one bit. "Please tell me these people brought flamethrowers."

"We brought sufficient ammo." Sarge cleared his throat. "If you're near the physics lab, we may be able to extract you-"

"We're in the biology lab. As the people you're dealing with would have already told you, Sergeant… _if_ they had any intention of getting us out." Urahara's voice went very dry. "Standing right there, aren't you, General?" A sigh. "I can think of a lot of things I'd like to say, starting with dark alleys and why you really should not tick off your resident mad scientists… but honestly, we don't have time. Somebody has to get to the physics lab. Now. Preferably, someone with high explosives."

Yamamoto-Genryuusai flinched at that. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Oh? Blow up a beyond top secret prototype, or let Hollows use it to escape beyond our perimeter and infect millions, possibly trillions more people?" Fingernails drummed on a desk. "Gee, let me think."

"They're animals!" the general blustered. "They can't possibly-"

"They remember how to open doors," Urahara cut across his words. "They remember who they're related to, and preferentially attack them. I am _not_ going to risk mass catastrophe by _assuming_ they don't remember how to flick a few switches on the transporter controls."

"You have a working mass transporter?" Kaien blurted out.

_A working what?_ Ikkaku wanted to ask. But Sarge wasn't interrupting the rookie, so he kept his mouth shut. They needed information - and the general here wasn't exactly being all open and above-board.

"Working, yes. Able to teleport biological entities without automatically frying them, yes. Safe for humans? I wouldn't try it, but Hollows are hard to kill, and desperate… wait a minute, I _know_ that voice…."

"Kaien?" another man exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Isshin?" Kaien said in disbelief. Snorted. "Playing with lab mice, my foot."

"I do play with mice, you delinquent designer of things that go boom-"

"Hey!"

"-I just happen to do it in high security. You never tell me where you're stationed, do you?" Isshin's voice hardened. "Sergeant, get my cousin out of here!"

"Don't think he'd go if I ordered him," Sarge smirked. "So. Going to come clean with us about what we're up against?"

"A death trap, if you're not properly briefed," a third man spoke up.

Sarge arched a brow. "And you are?"

"Special Agent Ryuuken Ishida, PSWAT."

_"What?"_

Ooo, Ikkaku grinned. Now Hughes _and_ his CO looked like the floor had dropped out from under them. Cool.

Only, if a guy from Parapsychological Special Weapons and Tactics was holed up hiding from these Hollows… how bad were they?

"You didn't think your program could siphon funds off from the Parapsychological Strategic Institute's administrative budget and not get noticed, did you?" Ryuuken's wry tone turned matter-of-fact. "Hollows are roughly human-sized, but usually go on all fours. They climb, so look up. They have color-shifting skin that blends in better than smart-net camo gear. They have claws, teeth, and four razor-edged tentacles, roughly four to six feet long, that are infective, neurotoxic, and can shred anything softer than sheet steel. They're fast; think Jain augments, times four. They regenerate - I've never seen anything like it. And they're smart. What they haven't got yet is experience. That's the only thing that's saved us. So far." A hiss of breath. "But they're communicating with each other, which means that now that even one of them has figured out how to use a psychokinetic blast, we're all living on borrowed time."

"Psychokinetic blast?" Sarge said warily.

"At least as strong as a mid-level Quincy's, from the report."

"You think they still think I was joking about the flamethrowers?" Urahara remarked.

"Isshin, where's Masaki?" Kaien said urgently.

"About ten feet from me, with Toushirou, the kid we picked up, helping pack what we can out of the lab," Isshin replied. "If we live through this, we're going to need some of these samples." His voice dropped. "Kaien, don't come down here. I mean it. I've been vaccinated. Masaki's been vaccinated. All the Hollows can do is kill us. Get who you can out of there, and get out."

"Not my call," Kaien shrugged. "Besides, how's Masaki going to get your samples and a kid out of there if we don't help?"

"And you're worried about that, and not us blowing stuff up?" Urahara commented.

Kaien snorted. "I've heard Isshin's college stories, Dr. Urahara. You don't _need_ help blowing stuff up."

"You know these guys?" Sarge asked.

"Mostly by reputation." Kaien shook his head. "Which is enough, if you knew my cousin…. Isshin, you manic idiot, how in space do you lab rats think you can get to the lab to make things go boom in the first place? Even if you were armed, we both know you're a lousy shot."

"We're improvising." A long breath. "Somebody's got to get there. And somebody's got to at least try to sweep that end of the base, see if anybody hid long enough to be waking up now."

Sarge's glance flicked to the open storage room door. "Wake up. Out of a cocoon."

"Chrysalis, if you want to get technical… Toushirou did. I did. We've picked up a few more. Odds aren't good, true. But if someone got lucky and barricaded themselves away from the Hollows long enough for the neurotoxins to come up - there's a chance. We've got someone calling rooms right now, trying to see if he can wake anybody up."

Kaien frowned. "You're stalling."

"Kaien…."

"He's right," Urahara said lightly. "We are. No offense, but intellectually interesting as a massive outbreak of heretofore unseen DNA-transforming monsters might be to a more distant observer, we're all terrified beyond the point of where I believed humans were still capable of rational thought." A pause. "And we're still going to that lab."

Motioning the rest of them to gather around, Sarge called up a map of the facility on his personal wrist computer. "I'd say leave this to the professionals, Doctor, but if Agent Ishida thinks you have a chance… let's discuss rendezvous."

"What happened to 'no reason to go in'?" Hughes said sourly.

Sarge gave him a hard look. "If you'd reconfirm exactly where you are, Agent Ishida, and give us an estimate on how many hostiles you anticipate…."

Ikkaku listened with half an ear, nudging Kaien. "You good?"

"Isshin's scared," Kaien said, just as quiet. "This is bad."

"Is your cousin good at what he does?" Yumichika said pointedly.

"Yeah," Kaien admitted.

"So when he and this Urahara guy talk _mass catastrophe_, they're not kidding around," Ikkaku stated. "And scared or not, they still got nerve. Have to say, if I'd figured out I'd been written off as acceptable losses…."

"Yeah," Kaien said softly. Forced a wry smile. "Wouldn't want to be the general when this is over."

Heh. Wasn't that the truth. Kaien had a wicked knack for practical jokes. If that was a Shiba family trait, Yamamoto-Genryuusai was in for a world of hurt.

"What do you mean, don't shoot when we see you?" Sarge demanded.

Ryuuken cleared his throat. "Let's just say, the dress code here ended up being a bit odd…."

* * *

:_Weaklings coming._:

Those who were _once-like-them_ but _not-like-them_. Those whose sweat called to them; for food, for the promise of _not-alone_.

Those who were _human_.

The tantalizing scent wafted through halls and corridors, shook off the sluggishness of _dry-chill-sleep_. They hungered, they were _alone_ - and soon, they would be neither.

Except-

Another scent, sparkling in the breeze. _Not-like-them_, yet - different. A taste in air, a :_feel_: that had echoed with :_challenge_: and :_not-prey_: and :_death._:

:_Death,_: one of their kind pulsed, with echoes of another it had felt die encountering an alien cocoon - and a chair. :_Death,_: echoed another, with the pulse of claws and desperate will where there should only have been easy meat gasping for air. :_Death,_: chimed a third, ringing with lightning and metal claws and _two_ of them cooperating, how _dare_ they?

And now, echoing from what agonizing memory said was the biology lab, those :_deaths_: blazed out :_challenge._:

:_We will not be prey. We will not be_ changed. _We will_ stop you!:

:_Trap,_: whispered some. :_Kisuke,_: growled others. :_The Hitsugaya whelp… easy prey…._:

Too easy, perhaps. But it didn't matter. The loneliness burned like fire… and there was only one way to quench it.

:_We come for you, little deaths!_:

_Coffee_, Isane Kotetsu, R.N., thought blearily, scrabbling out of the crackling pile around her.

"Haa!" Captain Tsukabishi grunted, something large and heavy thudding against the floor. "No you - augh!"

That thud, she felt through her feet. Bare feet. Weird. Sticky feet, with something gluey and yucky clinging from her toes all the way up to… ugh. Obviously, something in the ongoing Shiba-Urahara-Shihouin-Tsukabishi prank war (bio versus physics, with Urahara switching allegiances whenever one side seemed to be getting the upper hand) had gone horribly wrong. She'd get them all back. After coffee.

Glass crashed.

_Physics lab_. Isane vaguely recalled coming through the multiple massive locked doors and security checks into the bowels of Project Tatterdemalion's most hush-hush project to do a routine check of the lab first-aid kits, before something had… never mind, couldn't be too important. _Coffee is - that way._ Not that she could smell any brewing right now, but that was a minor detail. She was head of the infirmary night shift, the luckless base medic in whose lap landed all the late-night-stupid injuries, embarrassing infections, and _I don't know how I got glued to this, honest_ indecencies. There _would_ be coffee, or someone was going to pay.

"Ma'am, look out!"

_Hiss…._

Ugly. :_Angry._:

Between her and the coffeepot.

Teeth bared, the world dissolved into carnage.

* * *

Smashing a Hollow's skull one last time against a lab bench, crunching it through the cabinet door in a shattering chime of glassware, Captain Tessai Tsukabishi, Ph.D., lunged up to try and help the hapless nurse walking into death's jaws-

And stared.

_Remind me not to tick off the medics._

Isane was shrieking at the top of her lungs, something about _Kisuke_ and _idiot lab geeks_ and _coffee-!_

Frost-rimed, the Hollow shattered.

Picking his way around semi-frozen chunks of monster, Tessai approached the naked nurse, gaze carefully kept at her eye level. "Nurse Kotetsu? Ma'am?"

She whirled, eyes still glowing silver, a thunderstorm of :_coffee!_: and :_kill!_: slowly fading into :_tired, confused… know you?_:

"It's all right, ma'am." Tessai let that feel of _other_ in himself stretch out, like a gentle earthquake. :_Safe. Ally._: "Isane?"

She brushed sticky silver tendrils out of her face, eyes fading back to more human gray. Looked at the labcoat and plastic apron he'd scrounged up for decency's sake, and down at herself-

Tessai averted his gaze as Isane went bright red. "Um. There's some coats still hanging on the rack over there. Ma'am."

"What- but you- but I-" Bare feet shuddered away from a slushy piece of Hollow. Isane gulped, paling from red to near-green. "Oh, god-"

He almost got her to the bench sink in time.

"Help's coming," Tessai said from a few feet away, back turned while splashing water and ragged sobs finally slowed. "Major Kyouraku called just a few minutes ago. They'll get here as fast as they can."

"W-we killed-"

"They're trying to kill us, ma'am. And-" Tessai tensed, as the faintest edge of :_pulses_: swept over them.

Centered.

Strengthened, carrying an aftertaste of :_anticipation_: and :_hunger_:.

"They're coming," Isane whispered, ashen. "They want to kill us."

He winced. "It's worse than that."

"How can it be-"

Tessai pointed behind them. She turned… to regard the claw-scarred controls, where he'd caught a Hollow teasing the mass transporter to life. The slimy smear glistening from the yellow-and-black caution line to the metal-ceramic grid of the transport pad itself, where he'd started smashing skulls. The gaping hole high above, where something had blasted its way out of the ventilation system.

"Oh my god."

* * *

Flying metal? The humans meant to kill them with _flying metal?_

It would have been amusing, if it weren't so pathetic.

Their fragments of memory had to be wrong. They couldn't ever have been like this. So slow. So weak. So _blind_.

Yet even weak, and slow, and pathetic… the humans weren't _lonely_.

And for that, they had to pay.

And they would. Just… not here.

Slinking into the shadows, they laughed.

* * *

_Too. Damn. Quiet._ Kaien worked his way down the corridor with Cournoyer. Sarge was on point; Ikkaku and Yumichika were behind them, Thompson pulling rearguard. The base corridors were reasonably well-lit, emergency LEDs running off a minimal trickle of power, and almost too clean to be believed. The place looked as if it'd just been swept and waxed… or would have, if there weren't odd smears of old blood near various doorways.

"Stick to the main corridors," Agent Ishida had advised. "They like to den up when they're not actively hunting. The fewer rooms you go into, the less of them you should wake up."

So far the agent seemed to be right. They'd seen _something_ a corridor or so back - at least, he and Sarge had. A kind of rippling blur near the ceiling they'd both shot at. But when the dust cleared, there was nothing but bullet holes. And a stink.

_Damp earth. Rotten meat. Something…_ wrong.

Still. That had been way too many drumming heartbeats ago - probably five minutes, if he checked his watch - and since then, they hadn't seen anything. If these creatures were really that vicious, they should have-

Something didn't sound right.

Kaien glanced over his shoulder. "See something?" Thompson must have. After all, he was stopped a few feet back, out of position, and not moving….

And oddly blurred, around his neck and legs.

And _not breathing_.

Walls shimmered and the ceiling rippled and _oh fuck-_

Somewhere in the chaos of gunfire and screeching, a tiny fragment of his heart was achingly grateful to Sarge for setting that rendezvous point. Because they were shooting damn _everything_ that wasn't them, and if Isshin were anywhere near here he'd be _dead_.

The stretches of blur that held Thompson _twisted_. Limbs tore and flew, like a shredded paper doll.

_Not enough blood. He was already dead?_

Neurotoxic, the scientists had said. Fast-acting.

Kaien shut the dread and rage away, shooting where the blur and stink seemed strongest. Venom, and the bastards were smart enough to use it instead of just attacking straight out - and on top of that, they'd hit their rearguard first. Which meant-

"Fire in the hole!" Sarge tossed his grenade. _Ahead_ of them, into the ambush none of them could see.

The corridor exploded.

_Problem with having a certified - make that certifiable - genius for a cousin_, Kaien thought, clinging to what little cover there was as fiery metal shredded the world. _He's almost always_ right.

Shards stopped _tink_ing to the ground, and Kaien rushed forward with the rest of them through a suddenly-visible mass of gray and scarlet carnage.

Even shredded, the Hollows were still _twitching_.

_Hell with that_. Kaien put a bullet into a tentacle a little too near him as they rushed on through, trying to watch every direction at once even as he reviewed the past few seconds' mayhem in his head. Was it his imagination, or-

"Fuck, the geeks were right," Ikkaku swore as they regrouped out of the blast range. "Bastards _aren't_ trying to kill all of us."

_He's right._

"Madarame," Sarge said, low and warning, as they dropped back to a cautious pace.

"They got Thompson," Ikkaku went on, obviously working through the same conclusion that had chilled Kaien. "Rest of us, they were trying to maim-"

Yumichika screamed.

Ikkaku moved for his partner. Cournoyer dashed ahead, while Kaien and Sarge opened up more suppressive fire on blurry _pieces_ that shouldn't be moving in any sane universe. Cournoyer waved _clear_, for whatever that was worth, and everyone dashed and limped forward-

Doors. Shutting off this corridor from the one behind. He and Sarge slammed them, Kaien winding duct tape around handles to keep them shut against anything less than human-strong.

The wet _thwacks_ against the other side chilled his soul.

Ikkaku was already going at the bleeding tentacle with a combat knife, careless of his own hands as he pried constricting flesh off. Muscle hit the floor; Kaien stomped one end to hold it in place, as Sarge introduced the rest to armored soles carrying all the weight of trained muscle and a combat pack.

It was like stomping steel wire. But under enough boots, it stopped twitching.

"Oh dear," Yumichika whispered.

Ikkaku's blade had slashed open his pants to get at the tentacle. The dark punctures mottling skin over the artery were painfully clear.

_Not fair_, Kaien thought. And squashed it. If he wanted fair, he'd have stayed safe in R&D, instead of joining up to make sure the designs lab rats like he'd been dreaming up actually _worked_ for grunts in the field.

Sarge took one quick glance, and glared at Kaien. "An hour. Maybe two."

_Don't take it personally,_ Kaien told himself. _Don't. You know what we're going to have to do - what Sarge is going to have to do, he won't pawn that off on someone else._ "That's their best estimate, before humans start to lose it," he said, just as blunt. "Mouse data, whatever they got from other infected animals and the poor bastards who were there when the Hollows first popped up… Isshin wouldn't pad that."

"Then be sure to shoot me in forty-five," Yumichika said faintly. Forced a carefree smile, the same he'd use trying out yet another delicate shampoo. "Those things are so _very_ ugly."

"They're that, all right." Ikkaku looked lost. "Partner…."

"Get drunk for me, after." Yumichika stamped his foot on the floor, and nodded. "I can move, Sarge."

Kaien let his eyes slip closed for just an instant, fighting the lump in his throat. _Not fair…._

Checked his weapons, and moved on.

* * *

"What the-"

"Don't wait 'til it gets out, shoot it!"

"But the neurotoxins- it's a girl?"

"That's not a woman! That's a- a-"

Yoruichi Shihouin eyed the pale faces and shaking guns aimed her way, and sniffed, crossing her arms over her breasts. _Don't know that one, don't know that one- ah._ "Colonel Hughes," the animal behaviorist turned reluctant monster-hunter said dryly. "Where's Kisuke?"

"He's- h-he-"

Odd. The man was quivering like a jackhammer. He didn't _look_ young enough to be that inexperienced with naked women.

Then again, Yoruichi admitted to herself, feeling the odd twists and turns of new muscle snaking through air as she strode forward, this probably wasn't _quite_ what the Colonel pictured, thumbing through his latest Spacer's Swimsuit Quarterly. "Hmm." She let her gaze drift to purple-furred tentacles. _Purple? You did this on purpose, Kisuke. I just know it._ "Looks like someone missed a decimal point."

"You're - you- _don't come any closer!_"

Yoruichi stopped, aware of how close the man was to breaking. And startlingly aware of how close she _should_ be.

_But I'm not. I'm calm. That's not right. I should be panicking - not that panic would be_ useful, _but I should be._

Interesting. Kisuke, Isshin, Masaki - they'd all tried to make sure the modified virus they were using for the vaccine would not affect the brain. Apparently, they'd missed.

_Part of it, at least_, Yoruichi allowed. _I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. The original virus practically dissolves victim's bodies before it rebuilds them; if it had more subtle effects on the brain, that would have been hidden in the experimental noise._

At least she didn't feel homicidal. And all things considered, panic would only slow her down. Which would be a bad thing, with rescue so close.

_Rescue?_ She breathed deep, testing that thought, tasting dryness and desert dust mixed with the stale atmosphere of the shelter. And there weren't nearly as many people in here as there should be.

_The escape tunnel's open. We _are _being rescued._

_Well._ Yoruichi glanced back at the open door behind her, where more chrysalides still gleamed. _Some of us are._ "Where's Dr. Urahara?" she said levelly. _Appeal to authority. Remind Hughes he has more responsibilities than just himself. Before he breaks._

Slowly, Hughes shook his head.

"For god's sake, Colonel, what's the holdup-" Just in view at the edge of the exit tunnel, Yamamoto-Genryuusai's eyes narrowed. "No wonder Shiba cut the video feed."

_Then Kisuke-_ Yoruichi schooled her expression to calm disdain, shutting away the hope leaping in her heart. "General," she said coolly, "let's talk."

_Alone…._

A whisper. A shadow at the corner of his eyes. A _feeling_.

A very silly feeling, when he was prowling in the midst of his own strike team, Yumichika knew. But it was there, and growing stronger. Loneliness. Hunger. Darkness.

There was a demon in the depths of every striker's soul. He knew it. Ikkaku knew it. Kaien… might not. Yet. But the demon was there. You met it in the midst of a firefight. Let it carry you through the battles no sane man could survive. Chained it after the fight was over, and prayed it never slipped those chains near anyone you cared for.

_Alone… you'll die alone. They'll leave you, alone…._

Whispers in his mind. The clink of rusting chains.

Eyes on him, waiting for him to break.

_They'll leave you… they're weak… they deserve to die…._

No. That was the demon. And he _would not_ let the demon hurt his partner. No matter what it cost.

It'd be over in less than an hour, after all. They'd promised. He could stand anything for that long-

"Down!"

And Yumichika couldn't shoot, he couldn't; what should and shouldn't be targets all seemed turned upside-down, and it was taking all his will not to bite Ikkaku for daring to touch him.

For shoving him away from the heat-haze of a flying body.

He was _already_ dead. Why was the idiot even bothering?

_Focus!_

He was armed and he was angry and it was so, so easy to strike out and kill.

And so hard to know when to stop.

"Ayasegawa!"

"Partner, no!"

The world was crystal-slow, Cournoyer's muzzle tracking him like a lazy snail. A foot more, and he'd be on that vulnerable neck….

Something hit him like a freight train, away from his prey-

Into a wall.

* * *

Kaien yanked his finger off the trigger by a flash of brain over reflex. He could have sworn he'd heard "Don't shoot!" and seen a black-and-blond blur wasn't a _blur_ blur, but what the hell-

"Got him?" Isshin bit out.

"Think so," Kisuke grunted back, duffel bag on his back clinking as he pinned Yumichika with hands and knees and-

Kaien's jaw dropped. He barely held onto enough presence of mind to fire at the last twitching blur of tentacle on the ground, matching Sarge's own shots… and someone else's. _No. Way._

A stranger in glasses cleared his throat, semi-automatic in one hand and fire ax leaning against his other shoulder. "I'd say we're unarmed, but that's obviously not true…."

"The _fuck_ are you?" Sarge exclaimed, reloading. "And what the hell are those things doing to my guy?"

"Survivors," Agent Ishida said dryly.

"Call it a rabies shot," Isshin said flatly, pressing a spray injector against neck and wrist and flailing leg.

_"What?"_

"Rabies. Virus back on Earth," Isshin explained, moving to help Kisuke hold Yumichika down as the injured man thrashed. "Still might be, if some idiot's got it in a freezer… it was a killer. Drove you insane. _Ugly_ way to die. But if they caught you soon enough, the vaccine could still save you." He met Sarge's gaze. "It's not much of a chance, but it's all we've got."

"Might be more than you think," Kisuke mused, as Ikkaku warily moved in to check his partner and Yumichika blinked, focusing on the world again. "I tweaked it a little."

Isshin shot him a glance. "You made it _more_ infectious?"

"Define _more_," Kisuke said thoughtfully.

Isshin stifled a groan. "Yoruichi's going to kill you."

Kisuke shrugged - a rather intricate movement, at the moment. "As long as she's alive to try…."

"You're blond," Kaien said numbly. "You didn't used to be blond." Which was probably inane compared to _you both have furry tentacles_ - but they'd have to be blind not to have noticed _that_.

Urahara grinned at him. "Interesting, isn't it?"

Sarge swung his gaze around to Ishida. "But _you're_ normal."

"Not according to my government record," the agent said dryly. "But by your terms - yes. So far as we know."

"Don't knock it," Isshin shrugged. "I've got a feeling any stragglers who didn't react probably got eaten."

"What… where?" Yumichika whispered. "Oh god. Cournoyer - Ikkaku-"

"We're okay, partner," Ikkaku said, gingerly helping him to his feet, eyes darting about for any telltale blur of monster parts. "You didn't bite us."

"But - part of me _wanted_ to…."

"You _said_ he'd have an hour!" Sarge growled.

"Looks like adrenaline accelerates the course of infection," Kisuke observed bluntly. "Sorry. We didn't know." He glanced toward Cournoyer. "And you're going to be even sorrier if you stick that gun around the corner without warning our friends. We've had a really bad week."

Sarge's look turned even darker. "Who else is with you?"

"That'd be us." A brown-haired man in spattered terrycloth and outrageous pink camo poked his head around the corner and waved. Behind him echoed odd slicing thunks, as if someone were taking a cleaver to heavy meat. "Major Shunsui Kyouraku, formerly 2IC of security in this hellhole. My friend Juushirou's running clean-up, and keeping an eye out for us in case some of those bastards wise up and stop shouting what they're up to."

"Shouting?" Cournoyer said uneasily. "They just hiss."

"To you, yes," Kisuke nodded. "Which is a good thing, because some of us have to stay sane, and hearing these creatures electromagnetically broadcast that they intend to kill and eat us - not necessarily in that order - is not exactly conducive to calm and rational decision-making."

"Still terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought?" Kaien said wryly.

Around the corner, Juushirou snickered. Something smushed, and he sighed. "Clear."

"Yeah, right," Ikkaku snorted. "You can't even see these things 'til it's too late!"

"We can," Isshin said bluntly. "Not that _see_ is the right word, but… trust me, we know when they're there."

Sarge frowned, judging that. Judging them. Glanced at Urahara's pack. "What's in there?"

"Various improvisations," the scientist answered guilelessly. "Not as good as what you're probably carrying, but it would have been a shame not to bring them."

_In case we didn't make it this far_, Kaien finished silently.

Sarge nodded. "Okay, people. This is how we'll form up…."

Kaien moved into position as ordered, trying not to even glance at Isshin. _We've got orders to get the focus circuitry. They just want to blow it up._

Not that he could blame them, having met the Hollows hand to hand. Still - big difference. _Huge_ difference.

And Sarge hadn't said anything about it.

And Sarge didn't _go_ into firefights with the big decisions unmade. Which meant….

"Problem, Shiba?"

"No, Sarge," Kaien said easily. "Just wondering why we don't use a vaccine, now that we've got one."

"No time to wussy around being sick." Sarge swept a hand around. "Move out!"

Dark eyes scowled at him as they got started. "Kaien…."

"Hey, Ishida came out just fine," Kaien said, keeping his voice as low as Isshin's. _How do I tell him - Sarge is Sarge, but this is going to be_ wrong-

"Yeah, well, it looks like this thing likes certain MHC combos. And _Ishida's_ not related to me."

As in, the virus - and thus the vaccine - had different effects based on what your specific histo-compatibility might be. And given relatives had related MHC genes…. "Oh."

"Exactly." Isshin shrugged. "So… ready to stomp more Scorpions in this Box?"

And thank _god_ for shared family geekiness. "Just another day of Whack-a-Mole," Kaien said, relieved. _He gets it. He knows._

Now, what could they do about it?

* * *

In the abstract, it was interesting to realize she could now dodge bullets. That she could feel the pulse of hot metal rippling magnetic fields around itself, and react long before it could impact.

In the concrete, Yoruichi was riding the raw edge between pulse-pounding wonder and sheer, unadulterated terror.

_Up and out and_ run-

Heedless of bare feet and bare everything else, Yoruichi bolted out of the tunnel into desert sunlight. Ducked, dodged, and rolled away from yet another startled barrage of gunfire from the perimeter guards, streaking ahead of Yamamoto-Genryuusai's dogged pursuit to dive through the open hatch of the farthest shuttle.

"What the-"

Move and flow and _use_ this gift of incredible, unearthly speed. Weave around startled evacuees and armed soldiers, with just enough startled lead-time to _smack_ the cockpit lock controls.

_Locked, it's locked, and all of this is for nothing-_

_Fury_ burned through her fingers like white lightning, lit the console with spitting sparks. The lock _thunk_ed.

_Yes!_

She was through and slamming it before more shots could zing her way, manually shooting the bolts home on the inside before either pilot or copilot could react.

Out of line-of-sight with the door, Yoruichi leaned back and sucked in deep gasps of air. Gave the two soldiers - one dark and sullen, one stunned brunette - her most disarming smile.

Literally, as tentacles whipped out to snare sidearms before hands could grab them, bringing them to her sweaty grip.

"Good morning!" Yoruichi said cheerily. "The general - this _is_ the general's shuttle, isn't it?"

Wide-eyed nods.

"Good. Well, as I was saying - the general's bringing along a _few_ more evacuees than he mentioned."

The radio crackled. "Shihouin!"

"Or at least, he will be." Still smiling, Yoruichi gestured for the pilot to pick up the radio. "Hello again, General. Let's talk about… _morality_."

* * *

As the thunder of guns died away, a creature slunk into the darkness of the air vents, fighting hunger and the aching :_alone_: to think.

_Not working._

The humans were proving annoyingly hard to kill. The _little-deaths_ were worse. And the little-deaths had _done_ something to the human who should be changing-

_Feed! Kill! Lonely…._

The little-deaths were keeping it lonely. They had to pay-!

_Guns._

Yes. Guns. Hungry, _lonely_, but - guns. Little-deaths. Ending.

_Find another way._

How? It needed humans. It _wanted_ humans. It couldn't get _these_ humans without risk, and it couldn't get _out_-

:_Anticipation,_: pulsed across its senses. :_Hunger-to-be-satisfied. Little-deaths in the way… but only two._:

Intrigued, it followed.

* * *

If he'd had time, Sergeant Petrillo thought as they snuck and ran toward the physics lab, he'd probably have ever-so-kindly banged Kaien's head against a wall. Repeatedly. You did _not_ put civilians ahead of your team. Or the mission.

Then again, civilians who were also your family weren't supposed to be anywhere near a mission. Add in the guy theoretically in charge of this whole mess effectively leaving said family to die - yeah, he could sympathize with the kid being confused. A _little_.

Though if Kaien didn't get his head straight damn soon, it was going to meet a lot more than a wall. They _did not know_ if these… people… were safe. Reason said they were acting pretty damn sane, given the circumstances. Instinct said screw that, they had claws and wrigglies and an air of pure _predator_ every time they focused on the Hollows. Which meant the jury was still out, big time.

Especially since the clandestine channel feeding info from the general to Petrillo's helmet had cut off… though not before he'd gotten some nerve-wracking info on _why_.

Seemed that one of the cocoons, biologist Yoruichi Shihouin, had woken up. Tried to negotiate the rest of her affected co-workers a ride out of the shelter-turned-upcoming-deathtrap. And when that went south - she'd outrun security, outrun gunfire, outrun his own perimeter guards, and fried a _cockpit security system_ to take over General Yamamoto-Genryuusai's own shuttle.

A naked. Fucking. Biologist.

One of his guys, Sarge might have expected that from. Aside from the _outrunning bullets_ part. A _civilian?_ Not even one of the adjunct security people, but a lab rat?

Civilians didn't think that fast. That cold.

_So she's not a civilian anymore._

Not a conclusion the general had probably hit yet, but you did not get to be head of a Black Ops strike force by ignoring reality when it bitch-slapped you. He'd seen Hollows throw down with these lab rats, and it hadn't been the _Hollows_ that walked away.

_If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…._

Not that the people with tentacles were anything like ducks. More like Illiad, a half-wolf he'd known once. Trained, tail-wagging, and puppy-gentle as long as his handler was around - but the one time a feral dog had gone after his handler's kid? End result: one crying but intact kid, one slightly scuffed Illiad, and one handler hauling out a shovel for the dead troublemaker.

If Illiad had been human, Petrillo would've signed him up on the spot.

Given that, he wasn't planning to shoot anyone with them. Yet. Especially not while Kaien's cousin was almost carrying a feverish Ayasegawa. But he'd keep an eye on them. 'Cause even if they were lucky, and he was right… wolf-dogs only answered to the one _they_ thought had the right to be alpha.

And Yamamoto-Genryuusai had left them to die.

_Which means - damn. Maybe Kaien did the right thing after all._

Meaning now they _really_ had to keep the rookie in one piece. Human or wolf, some instincts stayed the same. If the pack wasn't following an alpha… they'd still rally around a puppy.

Hiding his smirk with years of practice, Petrillo watched Kyouraku and Ukitake cock their heads and let tentacles taste the air, _listening_. "What?"

"EM pulses," Ukitake answered, almost too soft to hear. "They're quieter-"

"Had to figure out we could hear them eventually," Kyouraku quipped.

"-But they're going the same direction we are."

"We don't see 'em," Cournoyer said nervously.

"Neither do we," Ukitake said absently, white hair shivering in a nonexistent breeze. "And it… echoes oddly."

"Air shafts," Urahara suggested.

"No way," Madarame snorted. "Secure base, right? _Nobody_ makes air ducts big enough for a guy to get through."

"A human guy, no," Dr. Shiba agreed. "These things make my mice look like creaky arthritic bicentenarians."

"Ow," Ayasegawa muttered. "Why… aren't you sure?"

"Until we left to find you guys, Isshin and I were in an electromagnetically shielded lab," Urahara said practically. "Juushirou and Major Kyouraku weren't. They've got a few more hours' experience, plus whatever they might have picked up before full consciousness-" He cut himself off, as Ayasegawa went limp. "Damn."

"Need to cut the chatter anyway," Petrillo stated, burying any quiver of unease in a glance at the map displayed on his wrist computer. "We're getting close, and-"

He saw them tense, and grabbed.

Even lugging Ayasegawa's weight, Isshin still yanked him a few steps forward. The others were _gone_.

_Way_, way _stronger than they look_, Petrillo noted grimly. "What part of _follow our lead_ do you people _not_ understand?"

The biologist _shivered_ in place, torn between racing ahead and Kaien's wide-eyed concern and just ripping Petrillo's arm off. "…You can't feel her screaming."


	3. Saving the World

_Chapter 3: Saving the World_

_Oh god - it hurts - please, somebody - anybody…._

The Hollow pinning Isane to the bloody floor pulsed :_glee_: and :_hunger_: at her, nibbling its way along one of her tentacles like a fastidious diner might an undercooked strand of spaghetti.

_It burns…._

Desperate, she reached deep for that sense of _other_, of _snow_-

_Trying_, keened the fading frost in her soul. _Hurts… dry… dust…._

Tessai was buried in his own swarm of bodies. His pain and helpless anger sluiced like acid down her spine. He couldn't help her.

And she could hear the eerie hum that was the transport pad charging.

Teeth bit deeper, worrying out another scream. :_Give up, little-death. We win. We eat you… eat everyone!_:

She couldn't reach to claw it. She couldn't throw it off - god only knew who it had been, but it weighed as much as three of Tessai put together. She couldn't even slash it; those tentacles not burning in agony were snared in barbed coils, so the monster could take its time.

And the hum was building.

_Fight_, whispered the chill inside. But it was tired. So tired. And she hurt so much….

Something clinked and rolled. She recognized the ping of hardened Pyrex glass, a scent of distilled alcohol and hot metal-

Fire bloomed, flickering yellow and blue, licking at Isane in spots of splashed liquid. Agony - yet blissful relief, as teeth let go and her tormentor shrieked.

"Knock, knock!" Urahara called over the chaos. "Hello, it's us!"

_They're here_. Relief did what torment hadn't, fading the world to gray.

_My-Isane! Ally-here. Pack-here. Stay awake!_

But the chill was slipping down with her, into the endless dark. _Sorry_, Isane whispered to that odd, snowy sister in her mind. _I tried._

:_Pack! Help us! Help…._:

Black.

* * *

_Next time I go undercover to investigate a super-secret, deniable project_, Ryuuken thought darkly, rushing through the lab doors just behind the rest of the strike team, _I_ demand _a flamethrower!_

Tentacles. Blood. Melting ice, chunks of melting carcasses. A woman's limp body on the floor, lit by dying alcohol flames. More Hollows, a waving sea of tentacles, swarming through the gaping hole where the vent should have been. And over it all, a sound he could only adequately describe as an _ominous hum_.

Gunfire erupted ahead and behind him; most of the team focusing on trying to hold back the swarm, while Kaien worked with Isshin to snipe any Hollow coming down their back-trail. Ryuuken held his own fire, searching-

There. By what had to be the transport controls. A knot of bodies, glimpses of white and brown fur, and the blond blur that was Kisuke squirming through the midst of it to tear at the panels covering advanced circuitry.

_But are they trying to stop the Hollows - or help them?_

He hadn't dared mention the possibility to Masaki. She was a scientist, true. Rational. Intelligent. But she was also deeply in love with her husband, idiot or not. The idea that he might have become a creature none of them could trust - no. Ryuuken couldn't risk that she would not hear it.

So he'd waited. And watched. He had to be _sure_.

Isshin was still shoulder to shoulder with his cousin, watching over the unconscious striker, holding open their line of retreat. Kyouraku and Ukitake were bloody and tiring, but wouldn't _stop_, holding back the razor-edged blurs of Hollows surging off the transport pad as Kisuke disemboweled the console. And Tsukabishi and the woman were dead or dying, having obviously gone down fighting rather than let the Hollows escape.

_Hell with the cover._ "Sergeant."

_"What?"_

Tetchy. He really couldn't blame the man. Ammo was getting low, the Hollows seemed to be endless, and Cournoyer had just made an odd noise that didn't sound good at _all_.

Fingers opening the hidden pocket in his cuff, Ryuuken let the small cross drop into his hand. "I'm afraid the general is just going to have to live without his tech-toy."

Halfway in trance, he reached for white fire.

* * *

_We can't let them out._

Hughes went through the proper motions in a numb fury, following orders even when the general had them wrap those damn cocoons in sheets, strap them to hand-trucks, and haul them up to the surface. They'd be just as easy to destroy here as down in the shelter; easier, if you shoved them into the path of a shuttle's exhaust. The object, after all, was to get that madwoman - mad _thing_ - out of the shuttle cockpit. If a little empty posturing got them closer to that goal, he'd live with it.

Only now it seemed as if Yamamoto-Genryuusai was actually _listening_ to the creature.

"…I could give you argument after argument, General, but it all boils down to this," the purple monster stated grimly. "We _don't know_ if we contained all the Hollows that were created outside the base. We _don't know_ if that was the only asteroid carrying that virus. Doesn't it make sense to give those of us who _have_ dealt with the Hollows at least a chance to prove we're safe?"

The general tapped his fingers against an armrest in the shuttle they'd ensconced themselves in - temporarily, the ship was already over safe lifting capacity. They _needed_ the monster's shuttle. "Isolation for the foreseeable future."

"Get us some qualified medics, we can live with that," came the swift reply.

"Dr. Shiba has his M.D., last I checked," the general said dryly. "And you'll have Mr. Yamada when he wakes up."

"Hanatarou?" It faked relief well. "That'll help, but you know he only finished paramedic training four months ago. And Isshin hasn't worked on anything bigger than mice for years. I grant you we look like a vet would be more help than a doctor, General, but please." The voice took on a hint of growl. "After all, you're going to need them too. We took the same vaccine. Do you really think your superiors won't slam you into quarantine with us?"

_No!_

Hughes lost the rest of the conversation in a haze of pure, visceral terror. To be confined with _that_, that temptress in disgusting form, with _those_… to be poked and prodded and assessed like one of Shiba's lab mice, by people who would think they were no better than these _monsters_….

_I'm not a monster._

He'd had to eject Kyouraku - what had _been_ Kyouraku - from their shelter. Of course he had. It was a matter of safety. Of humanity. The man might have been Hughes' 2IC, but he was a monster now.

_And I'm not._

Of course not. None of the survivors - the _real_ survivors - were. But they'd be treated just the same, if he did nothing.

It was the work of moments to step into the next compartment and give the appropriate orders. He didn't need to ask the general. This was a matter of security.

They had to seal the base anyway, before the thermite charges were ignited, to pump in the general's requested precautionary measure: Thanosine, a gas that should be lethal to anything that breathed oxygen. Which included the Hollows. This would just be sealing it a little… early.

A pity about Petrillo's team. But odds were, they were infected already.

Now, about those cocoons….

* * *

_Going to grab that idiot Ishida and paint him with polka-dots_, Isshin thought groggily, trying to shake off the feeling of having been dropped inside a bell and rung. He'd glimpsed white fire out of the corner of his eye, :_felt_: the tremor of concentrated force streaking toward the console and transport pad-

And then psychokinesis had hit stored energy, and the world had gone berserk.

_A Quincy. PSWAT sent in a _Quincy.

On the one hand, it was a good indication of how seriously PSWAT had taken the project's apparent financial sleight of hand. On the other - it'd have been nice to know they had serious firepower _before_ they'd tried to hack their way in here.

Though on the bright side, what Hollows hadn't been killed in the blasts seemed to be exiting the lab at speed. Which meant-

Isshin grabbed for Kaien, patting him down with frantic haste.

"What the- hey!"

"Did they get you?"

"No!" Kaien scrabbled to his feet. "I'm good. I'm fine. Why?'

"Because they're _leaving!_" Which didn't make sense with potential victims still in the room. Not unless fear had somehow overridden that horrible gaping _loneliness_-

:_Hunger._:

Small, fast; Isshin flung up an arm to block even as he jumped between it and Kaien-

Toothed. Squishy. About the length of a man's forearm, with no visible eyes and only stubby new tentacles to scrape at his skin. But definitely a Hollow.

Isshin throttled the slug-like creature one-handed, wracking his brain for what it might have been and where it had possibly come from-

Cournoyer's corpse rippled again, and another Hollow-slug thrashed free of the gaping hole in his abdomen.

"Son of a-"

"Mother-fucking-"

"Hell!"

Lightning, a blast of wind, and gunfire slammed into it at once. Urahara threw another fiery alcohol cocktail into the body for good measure.

The shrill screaming from the flames made everyone shrink back.

"…This is probably a bad time to remember Cournoyer had a multiple transplant a year or so back, isn't it," Kaien said numbly.

"Cross-MHC?" Isshin asked, just as stunned. Hospitals could do that, these days; trick a body into leaving donated organs alone, where pre-exploration medicine would have discarded them as hopelessly mistyped. A useful trick, when you didn't have time or money to grow cloned tissue.

"Yep."

_He probably got hit when Yumichika did, and didn't even know._ Isshin shuddered. _It got into his bloodstream, and… ate him from the inside._

Chalk another one up on the list of nasty viral tricks. He was going to be screaming himself awake with nightmares, he just knew it.

_If we live that long._

Ikkaku shook his head and stepped back toward them, gray as old-fashioned newsprint. "We done here, Sarge?"

Petrillo visibly swallowed. "Dr. Urahara?"

"Well and truly trashed," Kisuke grunted, levering up a blinking, bloody Tessai. Yards away Shunsui had already hefted a moaning Isane over his shoulders, biting his lip at the blood still welling from her tentacle. "_I_ couldn't rebuild it with the stuff left in here."

"Good. Any more _surprises_, Agent Ishida?"

"…Room's spinning, make it stop…."

"I can take him," Tessai said quietly, wincing as he wrapped a torn arm around the wobbling Quincy's shoulders.

"Good. 'Cause we're going to need everybody who can still shoot anything." The sergeant straightened his shoulders. "We've got two civilians to pick up, and then we are _out_ of here." He swept a glare over all of them impartially. "And _this_ time, everybody sticks to the plan, or _I'm_ going to shoot you! Are we _clear?_"

_"Yes, Sarge!"_

* * *

_You have to trust him._ Yoruichi stared at the hatch, fingers trembling as she lifted them to the bolts. _The general gave his word._

Walking out of the cockpit was one of the hardest things she'd ever done.

Yamamoto-Genryuusai and five other security personnel met her a compartment down. In the background she heard other refugees being escorted into the rearward areas, fear rolling off them in waves. "Dr. Shihouin."

"General," she acknowledged, glad of the shirt she'd borrowed off the uncomfortable male pilot. The general was a lot easier to deal with when he felt he was being treated with proper dignity.

"This will be the last shuttle to leave." His face was grave, with no hint of apology. "We'll wait as long as reasonably possible for survivors."

"General-"

"It's a long way from the lab, Shihouin. Face reality."

Reality meant the others might not make it out. That Kisuke might not.

_No. This is Kisuke. And Isshin. And Masaki. The universe is going to have to come up with something a lot worse than man-eating recombinant monsters to take_ them _down._

So why did she feel so cold?

And suddenly colder, as if an unseen flame had flickered out.

"We'll wait with you," the general said, more kindly.

Flicker. And the world was colder, with a fading flash of-

:_Fear. Pain. Confusion…._:

So _cold_.

"Shihouin?"

Shivering, Yoruichi glanced up. "Where are the others? The cocoons," she elaborated, when the general tried to look blandly oblivious.

"Colonel Hughes is taking care of them."

:_Fear pain_ help!:

And nearby, another flame guttered out.

She hit the compartment door, glad no one shot at her.

"Shihouin!"

"We have to stop him!"

Behind her Yoruichi heard the general suddenly barking orders. She didn't listen, focusing on :_fear_: and :_pain_: and :_trying to hide, why is he-?_:

Around one of the shuttles. Inside the security perimeter, but out of casual view. A stench of gunpowder and fluids and blood. Spots of red in desert dust, leading to :_panic_: and :_grief_: and a desperate young paramedic scrabbling behind the laughable shelter of a hand-truck-

Yoruichi twisted the silenced pistol to fire into the ground, feeling bones snap. He might have screamed. She couldn't hear it past the roaring in her ears.

_Dead. You're_ dead, _Hughes. I trusted you and I trusted the general and now they're dead-_

_Hurt-ours, killed-ours, enemy! Enemy! Kill!_

And she was on him, she _had_ him, tentacles wrapping around whole and shattered arms. All she had to do was squeeze-

_Tentacles. I have tentacles. Like the Hollows._

_I'm venomous._

_If I break the skin-_

Yoruichi threw him to the ground, keening grief and betrayal. Stood there, quivering, as the general's men grabbed the moaning colonel.

_Kill him!_ the lightning-shadow in her mind demanded. _Enemy, killed kin, kill!_

_No._ Oh god, she wanted to. But that would give the general no choice but to kill her. She wouldn't do that to Kisuke. She wouldn't.

And she could still :_feel_: Hanatarou's shock, pierced through with a sickening burn that was really, really starting to hurt….

_Live-kin_. The pressure in Yoruichi's mind eased. _Help cub._

She looked away from the carnage on the ground, walked over to where a white-faced Hanatarou had one hand pressed against bloodied ribs. "Looks like he grazed you," she said, voice rough. "Let's get you patched up."

"I couldn't stop him," Hanatarou whispered. "I felt them… I tried…."

"I know you did." Just waking up, strapped down inside his own chrysalis - he'd been lucky as it was just to move fast enough to dodge the shot. Mostly. The others…. "Look at me, Hanatarou. You're the paramedic. Don't go into shock on me. Just breathe, and look at me."

"But _why?_" Not quite a whimper. :_Alone, don't want to be alone,_ we _didn't hurt him but he took kin away-!_:

:_Not-alone,_: Yoruichi willed at him fiercely, feeling the pulse of his presence like a warming fire. :_Won't leave you!_:

"Why," Yamamoto-Genryuusai growled, "indeed."

"You can't stop now, General," Hughes gasped out. "You _can't_. It's just those two now. If they're gone, there won't be any questions!"

The general eyed him as if he'd crawled out from under a rock. "Oh, there _will_ be questions. At your court-martial!"

"What do you mean, just _us_ now?" Yoruichi cut off the oncoming tirade.

A frightened glance at her, and Hughes pressed his lips together.

The general's fists clenched. He straightened his shoulders, and switched on one of the radios the rescue team had brought with them. "This is Yamamoto-Genryuusai. I want to know all the orders Colonel Hughes has given in the past hour!"

* * *

"Well." Kisuke Urahara rapped his knuckles on the bulkhead sealing off the escape tunnel from the inside of the shelter. Considering metal thickness, composition, potential weaknesses (too damn few)… and the mindset that had sealed it in the first place. "This doesn't look good."

"Hughes _what?_" Sergeant Petrillo's voice rang across the shelter. "Son of a- With all due respect, General, you'd better have him under guard, or- Yes. I copy." He listened for what seemed ages. "…Got it. I'll tell them. Give us some time to consider our options." He clicked off the channel. Took a deep breath. "Given what we all went through to get here, people, I know you're not going to flip out on me now. So I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We've been screwed. Big time."

Kisuke glanced at his friends and coworkers. Isshin was twined around Masaki, travel-cages of scared mice set on the floor in front of them, duffles and improvised packs stuffed with samples and lab data still on their backs. The blonde had Toushirou half-nestled into her left shoulder, stroking white tendrils from one side as an exhausted Juushirou knelt by the other. Kyouraku was still on his feet, barely, leaning on the analyst's shoulder as his glance flicked over the shelter's air vents. Isane was awake, though she looked like she regretted it, standing with just a little waver by a glum Tessai and weary Ryuuken. And Kaien and Madarame were busy appropriating a dropcloth from a storage closet to wrap Ayasegawa in. A haze of amber was slowly seeping out of the striker's skin, which meant they had maybe a half-hour leeway before bare skin contact might be lethal.

"Good news is, there's still a shuttle up there for us, if we can get out. Bad news…." The sergeant grimaced, and shook close-cropped dark hair. "Don't know all the details yet, but seems your colonel cracked, Major."

Kyouraku gave them a wry grin. "Just when you think the day can't get any better."

"General says he and Dr. Shihouin caught the bastard before he could pump down the Thanosine," Petrillo went on bluntly.

_Yoruichi's alive?_ Kisuke glanced at his friends, saw them stand just a hair straighter, drawing strength from the unexpected mercy._ We're not doomed. We're not dead yet…. _

"But both these doors and the surface hatch are locked down. They could hack it if they had time…."

"But we don't," Kisuke said matter-of-factly, tamping down that wash of pure relief. _Yoruichi's alive!_ "While the majority of the thermite charges are set inside the main entrance to the lab, a significant fraction are in the escape corridor, set to blow a big hole down to the main air circulation chamber and pump superheated gas through our ventilation system. Enough to melt the whole place down. And he's set the timers."

Petrillo stared at him. "How did you-?"

"He's a genius," Kaien said flippantly.

It happened to be true. "Do we have any idea how much time?" Kisuke asked.

"He's not talking," the sergeant said dryly. "Not even when the general offered to have Shihouin give him a _big_ hug." A slight shrug. "So we better assume it's not much." He glanced over them all again. "Okay. What do we have, and what do we need?"

Toushirou snorted. "We _have_ locked doors. We _need_ a way out."

"Cute kid," Ikkaku muttered. "Laugh a minute."

"Why, you-!"

"Frostbite later, solutions now," Juushirou murmured, catching the boy's hand.

_Frostbite_. Kisuke tucked that glimmer of idea to one side, letting it play with the resources he already knew they had.

"Kaien, Madarame, how much have you got?" Petrillo watched their fingers flash, nodded, and looked back at the hatch. Frowned, calculating. Grimaced. "We can take down one door. Not two. Or…." He stared at Ryuuken. "We can use half of what we've got, weaken it, and let our Quincy take it down."

Pale, Ryuuken shook his head. "I don't think-"

"Agent Ishida. We need you for this." Sergeant Petrillo gave him a grim smile. "Besides, for a Quincy who could let off a blast like that, this should be a piece of cake."

"That shouldn't have happened!"

Isshin and Masaki glanced at each other, and nodded, as if that had slotted a key piece into their current biological puzzle. "Fine," Isshin said easily. "Shouldn't have happened. World's nuts anyway. _Can you do it again?_"

Ryuuken took a deep breath. "You're going to have to carry me out of here."

"Done." The sergeant waved his people in, decking the hatch with clay-like green. "Everybody back!"

The snaps were surprisingly quiet, smoke rising with a bitter scent of hot metal. Ryuuken moved forward at the sergeant's beckoning wave, hands shaking. "My training was focused more on fragile targets than heavy demolition."

Fragile, Kisuke knew, as in electronics - and people. The government didn't like to advertise that Quincys were generally best used as covert snipers.

"Bolt spreads out on impact, right?" the sergeant asked. "I want you to aim right… there."

_Whoa. I can actually_ feel _that._

Outside of a momentary shimmer, Quincy psychokinetic bolts were supposed to be undetectable to human senses. But this… this was a gathering storm, the breathless instant before lethal hail-

White fire flew.

For a long moment, metal only shivered. Then one side of the hatch sagged, and a gust of dust-flavored air sighed in. A minute's prying, and the door was done.

_And so's Ryuuken._

He was out cold on the floor, limp as a dead man. Still breathing, but barely twitching, even when Isane pinched the back of his hand. Petrillo glared down at the man, as if only Toushirou's ears kept him from peeling off some paint.

"Anybody have an idea how we can put the door back after we get through?" Kyouraku said, too casually.

Isane went white. "No…."

Kisuke traded a glance with Tessai, and knew he wasn't imagining that brush of :_hunger_.: He wasn't surprised to see Isshin had already gotten Masaki, Toushirou, and the unconscious striker through the gap. "They're in the shelter's air supply."

"No, I don't think so," Kyouraku said judiciously. "But they will be." He picked up Juushirou bodily, arm and tentacles wrapped around the slighter man. "Hope you've got the oomph for one more shot, 'Shirou. We're going to need a spot-weld."

"It won't hold long," Kisuke warned as they scrambled into the corridor.

"They're throwing Quincy blasts," Madarame growled. "Think we get the picture."

"It wouldn't, even if they weren't," Kisuke said plainly. "I'm a materials scientist. I know these alloys."

"So what the hell do we do?"

"Buy time," Petrillo grunted, gripping twisted metal to wrest it back into place. Glanced over his shoulder. "Ukitake. Be _very careful_ throwing those sparks around."

Kisuke followed his gaze, and felt his stomach twist at the sight of military-olive canisters, each decorated with a digital timer. _Sometimes, I really hate being right._

Scientists and soldiers held the hatch in place, and a pale Juushirou swept a hand along the seam, whispering under his breath. Sparks sizzled, oddly like Ryuuken's white fire, tracking their way down….

"Stop," Kyouraku ordered, with black weld still a foot from closing the gap.

Juushirou wavered on his feet. "I can-"

"If we have to carry one more guy, and fight, we're toast," Petrillo said bluntly. "Major says you're done. Let's _move_."

"Why the hell couldn't the genius who designed this place put in an elevator?" Madarame panted, helping Kaien manhandle the unconscious Quincy up the long, curving up-slope of the corridor, slowing now and then to stay a few careful feet behind Isshin carrying Ayasegawa.

"Elevator?" Kaien said pointedly. "As in, something that might need power, when you've already got an emergency?"

Madarame grumbled something rude under his breath. "Monsters are gonna have a straight line right to us…."

"Sorry," Kisuke said with forced lightness. "I had in mind earthquakes. Tsunamis. Dust storms. Fusion generator meltdowns. Man-eating monsters completely slipped my mind." Despite the situation, he had to grin. "I'll be sure to make a note for next time."

Isshin's chuckle floated back, warming as a mug of hot soup in winter. _He still believes in me. Even after all this._

It was humbling, to know you meant that much to your friends.

A last turn, and Kisuke shivered at the charges scattered around the sealed door. _End of the line._

There was actually one more door past this. A more flimsy construction, meant to hide the surface exit, shield the inside from the massive temperature changes of the desert surface, and provide an airlock of sorts. But if he knew Yoruichi, she'd already torn that out by main force. They were so _close_.

_But this door's stronger than the last one. This is the last defense. The final barrier, between whatever hell we unleashed in these labs and the rest of the planet._

_Why_ had he had to design things so _well?_

"All right, people," Petrillo stated without hesitation, "you know the drill-"

"Wait," Kisuke said hurriedly, fragments of idea coalescing into possibility. "What if we cause a temperature differential?"

"_English_, damn it!"

"You're short on explosives," Isshin said quickly. "We need to make the door more fragile."

Masaki snapped her fingers. "Like a frost heave!"

Isane shook her head, wan. "I'm sorry. I've been trying… it's so dry…."

_She's cryokinetic too? Interesting._ "Not you," Kisuke said cheerfully, and pointed at alarmed green eyes. "Him."

Petrillo's brows bounced up in the clearest _are you crazy?_ Kisuke had seen since the time he'd sabotaged an entire organic chemistry lab. Kaien's eye-roll and grin was almost a match for his cousin's: _yes, he is, get over it._

Toushirou rubbed his palms on the scrubs Masaki had hastily cut down to his size. "She's right. It's really dry…." He gulped, and looked up. "What do I do?"

Kisuke swiveled his finger to Petrillo. "And here's where _you_ get to give the Ph.D. a lesson on just how your stuff blows things up."

* * *

"We should open the door."

General Yamamoto-Genryuusai eyed the woman quivering beside him as they waited behind readied guns, trying not to react to the purple hair, extra limbs, or equally over-armed young paramedic clinging to her side. Though honestly, he couldn't blame Yamada. The young man might not be quite human anymore, but executing people in the equivalent of their sickbeds was beyond the pale for any officer. "We _unlocked_ the door. That's risky enough."

"The Hollows could be right behind them!"

"Precisely," the general agreed in clipped tones. "In case you hadn't noticed, most of our security is unvaccinated. I will not let those creatures escape this base!"

Shihouin stared at him, inhuman gold unblinking. Finally narrowed her eyes, and looked away. "If they make it out-"

"We follow the original plan, set off the thermite by remote, and shoot anything that crawls out." Did she have to be so twitchy? It'd be far easier to ignore the… obvious, if that purple fur weren't _curling_-

Her head snapped up, moments before something _thumped_. The general blinked as wisps of air visibly steamed out into the desert, as if someone had somehow cast the inside into deepest winter. Opening the strike team's channel, he eyed the immobile door. "Sergeant, what in blazes-?"

"Hang on, General, we almost-" Metallic banging, and a low curse. "Ah, negative on that extraction for now. Closing this channel, we need to improvise."

"Sergeant, how much time do you have?"

_Click._

Clinging to Yamada's hand, Shihouin gazed at the door in horror.

* * *

"Five minutes, people. Any ideas?" The sergeant was grim, but steady. Kind of like a depressed rock, Kisuke thought flippantly, trying to remember to breathe. Panic wouldn't help them. It wouldn't.

He was a genius. His friends were counting on him. He'd gotten them this far-

His mind was blank.

And there was the faintest sound of scrabbling, at the edge of hearing.

_They're through the door._

"'Shirou's out, both of them," Kyouraku said bluntly, helping the analyst sit against the wall by Tessai as he glanced at the boy out cold in Masaki's arms. "Rest of us are tapped out. It's going to have to be you two."

"With _what?_" Isshin snapped. "Don't you think if we could do anything, we'd have done it by now?"

"I don't think you've been scared enough yet."

Which was ridiculous. Really. They'd been fighting for their _lives_, and- why was the major advancing on them?

"I know you two." Kyouraku's voice was quiet. Deadly. "I know how you work. I know how you think. You're cool. Calm. _Always_ in control. Because what you work with isn't guns, and it doesn't go boom - but it's still dangerous, and it could hurt people, and that's the _last_ thing you want to do. And emotions aren't what you _want_ in science. You want theories, and data, and that icy judgment that lets you drop a bad line of inquiry like it went radioactive. No matter how much you want it to work. Because what you _want_ can't matter."

Kisuke tried to take another step back, and hit the wall. A yard away Isshin did the same, herded in by a stone-faced sergeant and apologetic cousin.

"I know you. I've been :_listening_: to you." The pulse rolled over them like snowmelt, clean and clear where the Hollows were icy sewage. "And while you've been listening to us, and the Hollows - neither of you have been _projecting_ more than a whisper." Kyouraku stalked into Kisuke's space until the materials scientist was pressed against Isshin's shoulder; stopped, and shook his head. "Funny thing is, I don't have to scare you. _You_ scare you more than I ever could. 'Cause you both know just enough to realize there's something inside you that's straight out of your nightmares. Something that doesn't care about science, or data, or rationality. Something that wants to live. To kill its enemies. But most of all - _it wants out_."

"Don't do this," Kisuke got out. "Please." Because he could almost imagine Kyouraku was right; that there _was_ something stirring in his mind, hot and angry….

"I'm sorry," Kyouraku said gravely. "I really am. But we are _not_ going to die here." He took another step forward, face bare inches from their own, dark strands rising-

The world whited out.

:_Pack needs you._ All _of you._

:_Death is here._ Life _is outside._

:_Masaki needs you. Yoruichi needs you._

:_Other-self is not enemy. Wants to help. Wants to_ live.

:_This is how you reach, and strike…._:

All Kisuke could see was blood.

_Shh…._

Like crimson talons of fingernails wrapped about him, elegant and gentle even as they yearned to draw blood. So much anger.

_Abandoned. Betrayed. Almost died. Why_ not _be angry?_

Because… his anger wasn't _like_ other people's. Not like Yoruichi's, a flash and then gone; not like the people he saw yell and scream at each other in meetings, in soccer matches, in just about any ordinary day. It was like Isshin's. Deep as the sea. Wide as a solar system. Old as a child's first realization that there were people who hated him, utterly, for no other reason than that he could think rings around them. So he covered it, and he chained it down, and if it ever got loose-

_Fear later. Live now._ Trust _me, Kisuke_. Anger shifted within him, turned fey and strange; incandescent, breathless as dawn. _Let me sing. Let me fly!_

The taste of blood receded, mingling with a clear, crisp crackle of fire. Familiar fire. _Isshin._

From what seemed like an endless distance, he heard the sergeant's unease. "Major…."

"What am I doing? No clue whatsoever," Shunsui said easily. "Too late to worry now." Friendly hands and tentacles seized their shoulders, turned them toward the-

_Enemy!_

-Battered door. Hands left them, just long enough to slip the crystalline strength of steel into their grip. "I promise," Shunsui said softly. "I _promise_ I'll stop you before you hurt anyone. _Let go_."

Beside him Kisuke felt Isshin murmuring something. It was lost in the trembling eagerness inside him, a fluttering like butterfly wings and silken robes and the leap of his heart at Yoruichi's smile.

Eagerness that was not dampened, even by oncoming, poisonous hisses. :_Little-deaths will not escape-!_:

:_That's little-death-_god _to you, you bastards._: "Sing," he whispered, "Benihime."

* * *

Spitting out dust, General Yamamoto-Genryuusai got to hands and knees and-

_Augh!_

Dropped back to roll in pebbled desert clay, extinguishing clothes and hair and smoldering eyebrows.

There'd been no warning. One moment Shihouin had been right beside him, vibrating with the need to _open that door_-

The next, she'd grabbed Yamada and _vanished_.

And the world exploded.

Slapping out sparks, the general tried to piece together the last few seconds. There'd been a red glow leaking around the edges of the hatch, a sudden sense of heat-

The doors were gone.

Not shattered. Not melted. _Gone_.

And there was a seared black gouge in the desert, three feet deep at the doorway, fanning out in a narrow cone almost thirty feet long. If there had been a soldier there - and the general devoutly hoped there hadn't - _they_ were gone too, seared away to nothing but black ash and glittering specks of fused sand.

Petrillo's voice rang out, shaken. "Stop staring and _move_, people!"

The general let his subordinates handle the details for the next few seconds, confident he'd impressed on them not to shoot just because they saw tentacles. This… this was too important not to see.

Destruction. Incredible destruction, of a kind he'd never seen before. Damage that could not have been caused by _any_ equipment the sergeant's team had brought along… or even a Quincy.

Ever so slowly, he grinned.

_Brown, blonde, black_, Yoruichi thought frantically, counting the familiar and foreign heads bolting out, looking for one in particular. _Bald and black with a chrysalis _-_ huh, I'd swear the young one looks a bit like Isshin. White… white?_

Two of them, no less, escorted by Major Kyouraku and a dark-haired military type. Neither looked old… and right behind them was a woman she ought to know, who was _silver_.

_Damn you, Kisuke. You_ would _make it so I can't find you._

:_Fury. Delight._ Hunting.:

"Oi, Yoruichi!"

She left Hanatarou behind the guns with a smile, a pat on the head, and a silent :_Stay!_: Flitted past an aghast soldier almost without thinking, heading for where a familiar black head and shocking blond were dodging at speeds even she had trouble following. Steel and hands were harrying and slashing, opening red gashes on a shifting pulse of :_Hate! Eat! Kill!_:

"Kisuke! Get back and let them shoot it!"

"Shoot what they can't see? Don't think so. Besides-" The blond ducked under a tentacle as a thunder of guns opened up on the gaping doorway. "Taunting this one distracts the ones inside!"

"Distracts them from-"

A dull rumble, and the doorway was filled with fire.

:_Pain_: burst across Yoruichi's senses like fireworks, echoing out of the base. She stumbled.

:_At least kill_ you-!:

Claws screeched on steel.

"Tell the others," Kisuke said in a low whisper, crouched protectively over her, "you _lost_."

Red light lashed out with his blade, and the Hollow fell in pieces.

Flames crackled, almost masking her friends' ragged breathing. Yoruichi rolled to her feet. Glanced at Isshin, who was shaking his head as if waking up from a bad dream. Reached out, and put a hand on the blond's trembling shoulder. "Kisuke?"

:_Stole your kill. Sorry._: Gray eyes gazed into the flames, searching for more enemies.

Should _be sorry_, her lightning-shadow grumbled, much to Yoruichi's dismay.

_No he shouldn't! It could have killed us… me._

A silent huff. _Next time, will be faster._

Yoruichi tried not to roll her eyes. "Kisuke. They're dead. It's over."

"Is it?" He leaned into her, lost. "We don't even know what we _are_."

"Alive," Isshin said bluntly, steering them both toward a gap in the surrounding soldiers. "And not Hollows. Which beats the hell out of the alternatives." He smiled at Masaki, :_hunting_: fading into :_end of the chase, home with the pack. Rest. Love you._:

:_Love you, mine_: came the faint echo back, almost lost in the louder drum of :_relief_: from the others.

Youruichi raised a brow at the blonde responsible, nudged Isshin forward when he almost stopped. "I think you need to have a talk about that vaccine of yours."

"…Yeah." Isshin hugged his wife close, running fingers through long blonde hair. Pushing back just enough to reveal a golden fuzz hidden among the strands, not quite long enough yet to twitch on its own.

"Eep?" Masaki managed.

Taking the bloody sword from Kisuke, Kyouraku lifted an intrigued brow, and poked at the unconscious health inspector over Tessai's shoulder. A few black hairs drifted free, evidently shed in favor of fine white. "Man, is he going to be ticked."

"He's not the only one," Yoruichi chuckled, unable to restrain a dark glee. Sometimes it was utterly amusing to be right.

Except, of course, when being right drew even more misery out of one of her best friends. Yoruichi bit her lip, beckoning Hanatarou back to them, trying to think of what to say to put light back in Kisuke's eyes.

"I thought you, of all people, already knew what we are," Juushirou said easily. "Didn't you tell them? _Little death gods_."

_"Shinigami."_ Kyouraku grinned, flicking crimson off before he sheathed steel. "I like it."

Isshin snickered. "Which makes these little guys-" he rested a hand on the cages Masaki and the others had set down, projecting :_safe, will be moving soon, calm_: "-The Grim Squeakers."

That got a tired chuckle out of Kisuke. Masaki groaned, the striker who looked oddly like Isshin cackled, and Juushirou buried giggles in the hand that wasn't holding up the child.

Kyouraku looked at them all with the air of a man who'd unwittingly strayed into a cream-pie fight. "…I'm really going to regret that when someone explains, huh?"

"Aww, but they're so _cute!_" Hanatarou knelt down by the cages of furballs, fear finally easing off his face.

"Petting zoo later," the military guy in charge stated, not unkindly. "Incoming general, five o'clock."

_"Urahara!"_

"Ah, how nice to be wanted," Kisuke said wryly.

Singed at the edges, a smoldering Yamamoto-Genryuusai stalked toward them. "Where is the-"

"Gone. Pfft. Up in smoke. Ka-blooey. All you've got is what's in the backup files," Kisuke tapped the side of his head, "and what's in here."

The general scowled. Glared over them all. "Board the shuttle. This is no place to debrief." Turned, and headed back toward uneasy soldiers, barking orders.

"Huh." Juushirou eyed their departing leader. "That was easy."

"_Too_ easy," the biology team - and Major Kyouraku, of all people - chorused as one.

"I don't understand," Hanatarou said, bewildered. "Aren't we supposed to be evacuating?"

"We are, and we will," Masaki nodded. "Help me with the mice? We've stressed the poor things enough as it is; they don't need to stay in this sun."

"And while we're bugging out of here," Major Kyouraku said thoughtfully, "they can fill you in on exactly why the general really ought to be more ticked off."

Yoruichi followed his gaze, frowning at the black scorch their final escape attempt had left on the desert. _That's what he thinks has the general worried? Why would-_

_They were out of explosives_, she realized. _How did they_ do _that?_

_And why did it feel like… like when I_ made _that lock open…._

Yoruichi swallowed dryly, following the others with a sinking unease. Kisuke was right. It wasn't over.

_So what do we do now?_

* * *

Something warm shifted against Juushirou's left shoulder, knocking into the side of his jaw. The analyst roused himself enough to tuck Toushirou's sleeping head more comfortably against his chest, and sank back against the compartment wall, letting the shuttle's vibration lull him back to-

"So maybe you can see the problem we've got here," Shunsui said quietly.

"Think so," Petrillo admitted. "But maybe you could spell it out…."

"Problem?" Juushirou said softly, looking up at the two military men. "What problem?"

"No problem," his friend said easily. "Go back to sleep."

"Sleep?" Juushirou said in disbelief. Most of the others were asleep, he didn't have to look to feel that; though Kaien and Madarame were muttering something over Ayasegawa's tarp-wrapped cocoon, and Isshin was still drowsily conscious, stroking the wife he'd almost lost. "You're _worried_." :_Worried for us; worried for pack. Threat? Where? Hunt, kill, bluff?_:

"I'm worried, and the first thing you ask me is what needs killing." Shunsui slapped himself in the forehead. "Oh, Houston, we _definitely_ have a problem."

"See what you mean," the sergeant said wryly.

"What problem?" Juushirou asked again, still keeping his voice down, no matter how irritated he was starting to feel. Honestly, was it that hard a question?

"Well." Shunsui tilted his head, dark eyes thoughtful. "Might be stating the obvious, 'Shirou, but we killed a lot of people today."

"Yes, I suppose we did," Juushirou admitted. "You think that will be a problem? They were Hollows. And trying to eat us."

Shunsui blinked. Shook his head. "So… you don't feel bad about it."

"Well, it's sad," Juushirou stated, wondering why his friend felt so wary. "I wish they hadn't been infected. That we'd been able to save them." He closed his eyes, trying to shut out visions of fear and blood. "I wish none of it had ever happened." But facts were facts. He'd made a life out of accepting reality, and he wasn't about to start denying it now. :_Pack is alive. Enemies dead. Breathing. Not-alone. With you. Glad._:

"Yeah, glad to be with you too, partner," Shunsui smiled. :_Kin. Home in the pack._: "But - and like I said, I _know_ this is obvious - 'Shirou, you tore one of those Hollows apart with your _bare hands_."

"A sword would have been a lot easier," Juushirou acknowledged. "I need to find out where to get one…." Words trailed off, as sudden, horrid realization crashed down. "I should be upset," he said carefully. "I killed people. I should feel… awful…."

"No!" Shunsui said fiercely, gripping his shoulder. "Hell, no! You did what you had to do. You did what kept us _alive_. You _should_ feel glad to be alive. I am. We _all_ are."

Juushirou nodded slowly, taking in what he could :_feel_: from the others-

_The rest of the pack_, murmured waves and thunder in his soul. _Our pack._

"We are," Juushirou agreed. "All of the pack. We're alive, and we trust each other to make sure we stay that way. That's why we can sleep, even after seeing what Hughes did. It hurts, but we have to rest, in case someone like him tries it again. And… we know we're not all asleep, that some of us are still watching." He met Petrillo's gaze. "That's not normal, is it?"

"For civilians? No," the sergeant said bluntly. "Pretty common in strikers. Protect your own. Kill the enemy. Walk on."

"So it's not just physical. We're… not the same anymore." Juushirou glanced at them both. "And… I'm not upset. I think I should be worried about that." He looked Petrillo in the eye, unflinching. "We need help, don't we?"

"Hell, _I_ don't think so," Petrillo snorted. "I think I like you guys just _fine_. But if you want to pass for regular civvies? Yeah, you need somebody to show you the ropes." He stood, languid as a panther. "Speaking of. Dr. Shiba?"

Blinking, Isshin looked up, and disentangled himself from Masaki to meet them by the cocoon. "If you're asking for a definite yes or no on Ayasegawa, I can't give you one until we can grab an ultrasound and peek inside. But the chrysalis is amber, not gray, and if you shine a light right you can see him still in there. A Hollow would be lysing tissue right now, pretty much breaking the whole body down to rebuild. I _think_ your guy lucked out."

"Lucked out, like you guys." Madarame rubbed his bald head, and sighed. Pushed back his sleeve, baring the inside of his wrist. "Okay."

Isshin drew back. "Um-"

"Hey, you never know," the striker said, mock-casual. "I coulda got bit the same time the others did. Or sometime in that big mess we scrambled through getting out. Better safe than sorry, right?"

"Ikkaku." The sergeant looked deadly serious. "You sure about this?"

Madarame nodded toward the cocoon. "That's my partner, Sarge."

Petrillo inclined his head. Turned that same stern gaze on Isshin. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," Isshin said bluntly. "That's what worries me." Taking out the spray injector, he pressed it over the large veins in the striker's wrist. "You might want to sit down. And get undressed."

"What, you don't think I'll end up like the Quincy?" Madarame tried to look cocky as he jerked a thumb toward Ishida.

"The way the Hollows were after you? No." Deliberately, Isshin stored the injector away. "There's something about you and Kaien. A feel… maybe a scent, mammals can pick up MHCs by smell sometimes, and if that's what the virus keys on… whatever. I _like_ that you're here. I think I like it a little too much." He gave his cousin a worried look. "Kaien - you're not _safe_."

Kaien rolled his eyes. "Isshin, come on…."

"He's right," Juushirou said soberly. "You're not safe. You feel as though you should be here. But you don't belong. Not yet." He swallowed dryly. "But we could fix that. And we know it."

"Everybody, just calm down," Shunsui ordered. "We're sane, rational people, and we are _not_ going to jump Kaien and drag him into a dark alley." He eyed the young striker. "But keep in mind, part of us _wants_ to. Much as I hate to say it, I think the general's right about the quarantine. Until we can get a handle on this, we shouldn't risk going near regular people."

"You mean, until you can fix this," Petrillo nodded.

Isshin and Kaien both winced. "Scissors, paper, stone?" Kaien offered.

"Yep. One, two, three-"

Kaien threw paper. Isshin threw rock… and his tentacles threw scissors.

Kaien glared at his cousin. And at his sergeant, who was snickering behind a hand. "Come on. That's just not _fair_."

"Life's not fair, kid," Petrillo said plainly. But bent a raised eyebrow on Isshin anyway.

Isshin shrugged, smile gone. "As our current local genetics expert, I have to tell you fixing this is highly unlikely to be an option." He looked them all in the eye, one by one. "And when I say highly unlikely, I mean not possible given the current state of the science and its foreseeable future for the next _century_."

Juushirou took a deep breath, fighting a sudden flare of panic. "But… people fix genetic defects all the time…."

"By _adding_ DNA with the correct sequence, sure. We've got therapeutic techniques for some conditions in children and adults, and we can do a lot more with germ-line and in vitro zygotic modifications. It's very possible that we could make sure our children are entirely human. But to try and get functional DNA _out_ of somatic cells…." Isshin shook his head. "We don't have that kind of tech. And we definitely don't know how either the Hollow virus or our vaccine pushed those affected into full-fledged metamorphosis. We're mammals, Juushirou. I don't care how many werewolf legends there are in folklore, there's _nothing_ in our evolutionary history that sets up a - a _change_ like this. And we'd have to pull it off in _reverse_."

"Which means that what we'd get still wouldn't be all human, no matter what it looked like," Kaien added. "Because you'd need some of those not-human genes to trigger another metamorphosis. Right?"

Isshin nodded soberly. "Plus, we'd be messing with the brain. Again. _Bad_ idea." He sighed. "We're scientists, not miracle-workers. We can't wave a magic test tube and _fix_ this."

Juushirou glanced back to where he'd tucked Toushirou against the wall. Blinked, and breathed, swept with a sudden, trembling wonder. "So we live with it."

"Which, if we're going to be honest here, _does_ scare me," Isshin said pointedly. Tilted his head, and arched a questioning brow.

Shunsui coughed. "Yeah, I'm sure we're all-"

"It's all right," Juushirou said simply. Looked Isshin in the eye. "At my last checkup, the doctor said six months. I've been told that a few times before, but…." _Resistance to autoimmune suppressants. Loss of remaining alveolar function. Imminent organ failure._ "…This time, the odds weren't the kind you can beat."

"And they won't do a transplant on Strickland's, because the way your immune system's messed up, fresh lungs don't last more than a week," Shunsui bit out.

Kaien blanched. "You had _Strickland's?_ But you're-"

"_Not_ dead," Sergeant Petrillo said thoughtfully.

"It's the autoimmune reaction that kills the lungs," Juushirou nodded. "If our lungs are different enough now, or it's just thrown off what my immune system was attacking because _we're_ different now…." _I'm alive. I might_ live.

"Whoa," Shunsui said reverently. "How about that."

Juushirou smiled at him. Whether or not this was a fix, he was alive now, and breathing; safe, with people he trusted and :_kin_: he'd kill to protect. He hadn't felt this happy in years. "But… what do we do now?"

"What, you think data analysis is going to be a little tame after this?" Shunsui teased.

Juushirou reddened. "Well…."

"Don't be too sure," Isshin said dryly. "If Kisuke's right, and he usually is, this was a weapon." He raised his brows at the sergeant. "What would you do, if a first strike went fizzle?"

"What kind of first strike goes down in the middle of a damn desert?" Petrillo objected.

"The perfect one, if you want to test a retroviral spore initially spread through moist skin contact on a limited population, see how far it spreads, see how _fast_ it spreads, and see how your targeted planet responds," Isshin said flatly.

"Hell, any halfway competent insurgent group can get their hands on some idiot's study on that," Kaien grumbled, watching Madarame sigh into feverish sleep.

"Right," his cousin agreed. "Any _human_ one."

The strikers stared at him.

Isshin nodded, slow and sober.

"You're telling me there are aliens out there," Kaien said, stunned.

"The virus was inside an asteroid that otherwise _seemed_ to be normal, it _only_ targets Earth-native mammals, and it's a _millennium_ ahead of any known human biotech," Isshin stated flatly. "Call me crazy, but based on what I picked up in history class, if any _human_ group was this much more advanced than us, they'd have steamrollered us by now."

"You're saying there are _aliens_ out there, and they don't fucking _like_ us," Petrillo growled.

Isshin waved a tentacle. "Unless you think this is just a misunderstood friendly hello."

_"Fuck."_

"So," Shunsui said dryly. "Given that, what happens after the fizzle?"

Kaien frowned. "Would they even know it fizzled?"

A thoughtful pause. "Xenopsychology and tactics was just an optional seminar given by a crotchety old admiral, back when I went to the academy," Shunsui admitted. "Unless somebody's got anything more recent… didn't think so." He let out a slow breath. "If I remember right, old man Asher said watching space travel would be too tricky, just like it is for us; space is just too big. Even putting surveillance near habitable planets is iffy. To get good coverage, you need a lot of satellites, and every one is another chance for the people you're watching to get a clue. But if your targets broadcast information themselves, and you only have to plant _one_ bug to pick up on that…."

"Their biggest source of strategic information could be us," Kaien summed up.

"_If_ they exist. _If_ they think tactically anything like we do." Shunsui threw up his hands. "This is an awful lot to build on just Kisuke's guess from your DNA analysis."

"It's not a guess," Isshin said firmly. "We've got our files. We'll get more evidence. If we have to take apart the damn virus nucleotide by nucleotide."

"Guess or not, if we assume they're right, and they're wrong, we can live with it," Petrillo said, looking at Shunsui. "If we act like they're nuts, and they're not…."

"Don't think it'll be too hard to talk the general into a complete news blackout," Shunsui agreed. "The Project's supposed to be under the radar. This will just mean going a little deeper."

_In six months, Tatsu's expecting a funeral_, Juushirou thought, curling up next to Toushirou again. But that was an aching gap of eternity, compared to the heartbeat by heartbeat fight they'd just won. He didn't want to think beyond the next day. The next _hour_.

Except…. "We're going to have to go back there sometime, aren't we?"

Everyone still conscious glanced at the shuttle wall, as if they could stare through it toward the fiery ruins of lives behind them. "Probably," Shunsui admitted. "But not today, partner. Not today."

Relieved, Juushirou snuggled up next to the :_pack's cub,_: and finally slipped into sleep.

* * *

Deep in wet limestone caverns, under the smoldering ruins of a prospectors' settlement that would soon be buried in bureaucratic security records under the codename _Hueco Mundo_….

:_Little-deaths…!_:

-End


End file.
